Imagini ale paginilor
PDF
ePub

'One's feeling about such a home, though long absent from it, is full of that infinite tenderness which Eugene Field writes about in his beautiful poem entitled, "Dreaming of Home."

"It comes to me often in silence,

When the firelight sputters low-
When the black, uncertain shadows
Seem wraith of long ago;
Always with throb of heartache,
That thrills each pulsive vein,
Comes the old, unquiet longing
For the peace of home again.

"I'm sick of the roar of cities,

And of the faces cold and strange;

I know where there's warmth and welcome.
And my yearning fancies range

Back to the dear old homestead,

With an aching sense of pain;
But there'll be joy in the coming,
When I go home again.

"When I go home again! There's music
That never may die away,

And it seems the hands of angels,

On a mystic harp at play,

Have touched with a yearning sadness

On a beautiful broken strain,

To which my fond heart is wording,
'When I go home again."

"Outside of my darkened window

Is the great world's crash and din,
And slowly the autumn shadows
Come drifting, drifting in;
Sobbing, the night wind murmurs

To the splash of the autumn rain;
But I dream of the glorious greeting
When I go home again!"

Good friends whose hearts are true to their God and then true to us are great sources of strength. We are constantly tempted to make friends who make us weaker instead of stronger; but happy are the men and the women who make noble, pure friends, who feed that which is best in them, who strengthen them to be the very best men and women that it is possible for them to become, and who never excuse them from less than their best.

There is another coaling-station of which I must speak, and that is the mercy-seat, where the forgiving Christ meets the repenting sinner. Many men and women are like the steamer that crept North toward Philadelphia not long ago. The gale had delayed the vessel on its voyage beyond the usual time, and at last its coal supply gave out. Then they began to burn the cargo, and at last to burn all that would burn of the ship. Finally, when it was hailed by a passing vessel, everything that was wooden about the ship had been burned up, and coal had to be sent from Philadelphia so that the poor old burned-out iron hulk could steam into the harbor. No doubt some who hear me are like that. You have been living not on your income but on the capital. You have been using up the very vitality of your life. You must be a shipwreck unless Christ shall meet you on the voyage and impart to you the resources that are necessary to start you with new strength and happiness on the way to heaven. Christ is able and willing to do just this for you. He will not keep you waiting or drifting, but will come to you at once. He will be as gentle with you as he was with the poor invalid woman who followed him in the crowd seeking to touch the hem of his garment; he will be as gracious to you as he was to Bartimeus when he made the whole crowd stop while he opened the blind man's eyes. So he can bless you. However wasted your resources may be, at his feet there is abundance of forgiveness and love and hope, and courage to supply all your need.

271

"And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen."-Luke 2: 20.

Of all the picturesque and beautiful incidents connected with the Christmas story, nothing is more fascinating than the part of the shepherds in it. These Syrian shepherds to whom the angels sang the first Christmas anthem have gone into the art and poetry and romance of the world as no other group of men since the world began. No wonder the anthem which they heard that night has become the world's great Christmas anthem, for it was furnished by the angels direct from heaven. Bishop Warren has a unique idea that the song above Bethlehem was not intended for earth, because only a few shepherds heard it; but was an outbreak, an overflow, of the joy of heaven. His thought is that the angels sang not to be heard, but to voice their exuberant, unrestrainable joy. But I like to think God sent them on purpose to bring the good tidings to the earth, and it is certainly in harmony with everything else connected with the Christmas time that he should have sent

them to these simple-minded shepherds. If the news is good enough, you need not put it in the daily paper; you have only to breathe it out on the air, and the little birds will catch it up and carry it to the ends of the earth. If the vein of gold is rich enough, you may stow it away a thousand feet underneath the mountainside, and only leave a little jutting point of quartz at the surface to hint its presence, and the miner will dig down into the secret places of the earth until he finds it. It was not necessary for God to tell the good news of Christ's coming to kings and nobles in the great centers of the earth; the news was so precious that it was only necessary to let the angels sing it to the shepherds out on the hills, and ere long the whole world would sing the anthem.

There are some lessons which I think we may well learn from these Christmas shepherds. How true to human nature is the story when it says of them that "they were sore afraid" when they first heard the wonderful music of the angels. Think of it! Afraid of the angels; afraid of good tidings; afraid of God's promise of mercy and peace; afraid of heaven's love and good will. But is not that true of some of you? After all the light and knowledge which has come to you about Christ, and the precious influence

he has on men and women who serve him, are not some of you yet afraid to trust him, and yield your hearts up to his service? Yet you have seen so much more than had these shepherds of Christ's gracious purpose to the world. You have seen selfish men made generous; frivolous people become reverent; careless people become sympathetic and kind; unreliable people become honest; drunkards become sober, all through fellowship with Jesus Christ. And yet you start back with some strange fear when you are urged to yield yourselves to Christ as a friend and disciple.

But as the shepherds listened to the heavenly music the charm of it pervaded their souls. If they had stopped their ears and refused to listen to it they would have lost their great opportunity. Fearful and doubting though they were, they gave themselves a fair chance, and listened to the music of the heavenly choir. As they listened they began to wonder if it were not true; and then to think what a wonderful thing it would be, and what a blessed thing, if it were true. Many a man has found Christ that way. First he has had doubts, has been afraid; but after awhile he has said to himself, "If it were only true it would be a happy truth; I sadly need some one to come to me from God with good tidings to my soul. I need to feel that God has good will toward me, and to have some powerful voice speak peace to my troubled heart." Possibly I speak to some one here in just that condition. You have not yet become a Christian; indeed, you have been rather confused and perplexed about Christianity; but you have got far enough to feel that if what enthusiastic Christians say about it is true it would be a very happy and precious thing for you.

If that is your condition, then I trust you are ready to take the next step with the Christmas shepherds. In their wonder and wistfulness, scarcely daring to believe it can be true, and yet wishing it were; and in their first loneliness after the angels had gone away into heaven, they said one to another, "Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us." I call your attention to the promptness of the shepherds in putting to the test the good news that had come to them. All Christianity requires is to be put to the test. It is very strange to me that men should delay so long about coming to Christ when it is not a matter of theory but a matter of experience. It is a thing a man may test for himself. The shepherds

wisely said, "Let us now go." They did not even wait until the morning, but went at once.

There is a legend told among the peasantry in Russia, that when the three wise men came from the East bearing their precious gifts for the king they found in a little oasis of the desert a humble. dwelling where an old woman was engaged in her household work. These wise and generous-hearted men thought to confer on her a great blessing by offering to take her with them in their caravan in their search for the King whose star they had seen in the East. But she was busy at the time, and so she replied, "I will come, but not now." She gave them her blessing, and agreed to follow them as soon as her work was finished. But after awhile, when her work was done, not only had the wise men and their caravan departed, but the guiding star in the heavens had also disappeared. I pray that none of you may make that great mistake. This Christmas time may be to some of you the great Christmas of your life. It is God's call to you. You may, if you will, come now and find Jesus; but if you delay, your interest may die away, your heart harden, your feet be entrapped in the snares of the world, and you thus lose forever your great opportunity.

The shepherds were not disappointed. They found everything as it had been told them. They came timid and doubting and curious; they went back worshipful and rejoicing. Christ had stood the test, and he has stood the test ever since. Men have come to Jesus in all varieties of condition, in sorrow and in trouble, but when they have come with open hearts, as did the shepherds, only seeking to find the truth, they have always gone away like the shepherds full of reverent joy and happiness; the universal testimony has been that Christ is better in experience than in description. Some of you have come to this Christmas time out of harmony with its music and its joy. In a certain way you have enjoyed the music, you have caught something of the cheer of the Christmas giving and good will, but you have been haunted with a feeling that the great central truths of Christmas are not experienced and felt in your heart. The trouble is that you have not yet found Jesus; you have heard the angels sing their anthems, and God's message has come to your heart, but you have not yet made your pilgrimage to Bethlehem, nor bowed your knee before the Christ. Do that, and you shall go back with the Christmas shepherds in their rejoicing.

Another thing that makes me feel the appropriateness of the

« ÎnapoiContinuă »