A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation of ChristmasSnowden, James H. (James Henry)
Religion
A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation of Christmas
Snowden, James H. (James Henry)
Christmas
Though Jesus wrote no book himself and never wrote any recorded thing
except a few words in the sand which some passing breeze or foot quickly
obliterated, yet out of him have grown vast forests of literature. It
would tear great gaps in the shelves of any library and leave the
remaining volumes spotted with blank spaces if all the books about him
and references to him were removed. A thousand books have been written
about Lincoln and eighty thousand about Napoleon, but if all the books
that were ever written about Lincoln and Washington and Napoleon and
Cæsar were piled up in one heap it would look small beside the mountain
of books that have been written about Jesus Christ. Not only have the
writers written about him above every other figure in history, but in
like degree the artists have painted him and the musicians have sung
about him. He is the most fertile theme of all literature and art, and
the gifts that genius have heaped about his feet are an incomparable
testimony to the adoration that is paid to him.
About the first use to which any notable invention is put is to spread
the gospel of Jesus. The very first book printed on a printing press was
the Bible, and this wonderful and perhaps greatest human invention has
been busier printing this book than any other to this day and multiplies
its copies by the hundred million over the world. The newspaper is a
mighty means of spreading his principles. The railway and steamship
carry his gospel, and the airship gives wings to the same good news.
Telegraph and telephone flash it, and wireless waves set the ether over
whole continents and oceans aquiver with the messages of Jesus Christ.
The sewing machine sews for him, the typewriter writes for him, and even
battle ships and bayonets may fight for him. Sooner or later every
inventor must lay his magic machine at his feet. For him the statesman
legislates, the scientist investigates, the author writes, the artist
paints and the singer sings. In an increasing degree Jesus is drawing
all men into his service, and they are laying their treasures at his
feet. The gold of the wise men was only the first gleam of the shining
heaps of wealth that his followers are now piling on the altar of his
service. This process will go on until the whole world will lie at his
feet.
Every generation sends a more numerous company to Bethlehem. With every
century worshipers arrive from more distant lands. From every quarter of
the circumference of the globe paths now run to the manger of this
Child, worn deep by millions of feet. The nations are beginning to come.
By and by these converging paths will be crowded and all the ends of the
earth shall bring their gold and shall worship at his feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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