The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1922-01-10

years, and its only legacy to history
is the tangle of names and dates with
which it confusses the records of
those thirteen years.
All the forces known to history,
| in word, have been employed to
mark the starting point from which
! the human race may count It's years
and all have failed. Only one Event
| towers high enough above the ho-
rizon of history to serve as lard
| mark and a time measure for all
/ civilized races.
| Faith sees of course in that deep
mark on human history mysterious
and as far as human purposes is con-
| cerned, an undersigned, but all sig
nificant token of ownership. IT Ger
| responds to the stamp on the coin
| 1t answers the challenge. Whose
| image and superscription is this?"
1t is both ? sign and a prophecy; q
| sign that the centuries belong to
! Christ, a prophecy of the fast colu-
| ing hour when all that Time includes
and represents shall bear His sigma
! ture.
But what faith sees in the Christ
| tanized calendar is perfectly clear
| for the Christian. What is there
then for the doubter, the disbaliever
What adequate and -intelligi5le eS-
PLANTATION can on scientific grounds,
be given of this strange signature of
a dead Jews hand on all the
aImanacs of the world? What force
wrote it there? Is it there by mere
accident? Is it the result OF rea-
sonless caprice? 1t is certainly not
the result of Christian fanatics.
Some days ago 1 walked the strand
of the great Atlantic. The lines left
by the receding tide was clearly out
lined on the sand, but my footprints
effaced it. But that line shows
where the tide had run. 1t is a
measure of the mysterious forces
and energies born of the movements
of the planets and the unsounded
depths Of the ocean, which cause the
tides. Just so the date of the alma
nae is tide mark and it is the mark
OF tide which has known no reflux.
Ii a jury of historians had to cX-,
plain on purely historical grounds
the letters A. D., which now serve
universally as a point whence civiliz-
ed time is reckoned, they must report
that some force mysterious in origin
and in truth, and in quality, and in
dependent of human will but with
range and energy sufficient to affect
all civilized nations, and persistent !
enough in character to run through |
all the centuries, has somehow put |
the impress of Christ's hand on his
tory. What other explanation is
possible?
On the theory that Christ never
lived or that He was an impoSter III
regard to whom only the visible hu
man elements have to be computed,
the change in the computation of
time is the very paradox of history
Here is a peasant in the very dark
est age of the world; He lived in a
subject province; He never wrote q
sentence which has been preserved;
He died cast out by His own race.
and abandoned by His scanty hand
full of followers. Yet twenty cen
turtles after He hung on the cross His
birth is accepted by believers and I'm
believers alike, as the point whence
all the centuries must be counted. In
Jean Paul Richter's magnificent
sentence The crucified Jew, beng
the hottest amongst the mighty, the
nightiest amongst the holy, has lift.
ed with His pierced hands empires .
off their hinges, turned the streams .
Of centuries out of their channels,
md still governs the ages" And all
our almanac from New Years morn
Until New Years morn repeat in un-
prose, in unrythmical num-
erals, that flight of stately rhetoric.
AS Faith looks with adoring eyes
on Jesus Christ the cause is scientl- 7