For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Eound an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than the Eden
And a taller town than Eome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.^
* G. K. Chesterton, The House of Christmas.
Good Tidings of Great Joy.
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), The Revealer Revealed, 1.
Alexander (W.), Leading Ideas of the Gospels, 148.
Askew (E. A.), The Service of Perfect Freedom, 32.
Austin (G. B.), The Beauty of Goodness, 202.
Blake (R E.), Good News from Heaven, 1.
Brooke (S. A.), The Kingship of Love, 215.
Carter (T. T.), Meditations on the Hidden Life of our Lord, i. 44.
Channing (W. E.), The Perfect Life, 215.
Collins (W.E.), Hours of Insight, 124.
Craigie (J. A.), The Country Pulpit, 49.
Doney (C. G.), The Throne-Room of the Soul, 95.
Ellicott (C. J.), Sermons at Gloucester, 11.
Greenhough (J. G.), Christian Festivals and Anniversaries, 204.
Hancock (T.), The Pulpit and the Press, 41.
Hare (J. C), Sermons Preacht in Herstmonceux Church, ii. 167.
Harper (F.), A Year with Christ, 14.
Leathes (A. S.), The Kingdom Within, 1, 15.
Macmillan (H.), The Garden and the City, 31.
Marjoribanks (T.), The Fulness of the Godhead, 44.
Massillon (J. B.), Sermons, 407.
Miller (J.), Sermons Literary and Scientific, i. 211.
Moody (A.), " Buy the Truth! " 29.
Morrison (G. H.), The Footsteps of the Flock, 385.
Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 201, 485.
Parker (J.), The City Temple, iii. 307.
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, i. 76.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xii. (1866), No. 727 ;
xvii. (1871), No. 1026 ; xxii. (1876), No. 1330. Thome (H.), Notable Sayings of the Great Teacher, 250. Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xix. (1881),
No. 1171 ; xxi. (1882), No. 1204 ; xxvi. (1886), No. 1309. Watkinson (W. L.), The Education of the Heart, 247. Christian Age, xli. 83 (Ljnian Abbott). Christian World Pulpit^, xliv. 161 (J. 0. Dykes) ; Ixxiv. 409 (W. D.
Lukens). Homiletic Review, xxxiv. 43 (E. D. Guerrant) ; xlviii. 459 (W. D.
Lukens) ; liv. 461 (W. A. Quayle) ; Ixiii. 51 (J. Denney).
Good Tidings of Great Joy
And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid ; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people ; for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. — Luke ii. lo, ii.
1. To the evangelist and to Christian faith the coming of Jesus into the world is the great event in its history. We divide time into the Christian era and the era before Christ. Yet we cannot be sure of the very year when Christ was born, any more than of the very year when He died ; and though St. Luke was anxious to date the birth precisely, as we see from verses 1 and 2, there are unsolved difficulties connected with the census which we have simply to acknowledge. That the Day-spring from on high visited the world to give light to them that sit in darkness is undoubted, though we may not be able to tell the hour of its rising.
The narrative of St. Luke is the most wonderful and beautiful in Holy Scripture, and has always touched the hearts of men. Not that Christmas, as we call it, was from the beginning the great festival of believers. On the contrary, the great festival of the early Church was Easter, the day of the resurrection. It was not till the thirteenth century that the infant Christ and the manger came to have the place they now hold in the thoughts and affections of Christians, and this was greatly due to the influence of Francis of Assisi, who visited Bethlehem and wept with holy joy over the lowly birth of the Saviour. He diffused his own devotion when he returned to Italy, and great artists found in the stable and the manger, the ox and the ass (borrowed from Isa. i. 3), the mother and the Child, the shepherds and the angels, the highest inspirations of their genius.
2. It is long since the shepherds near Bethlehem beheld in the clear eastern sky the glory of the Lord, and heard the voice of the heavenly messenger proclaiming, "Behold, I bring you good
26 GOOD TIDINGS OF GREAT JOY
tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people : for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Centuries have rolled by, but the lustre of that night has not passed away. The tones of that message have been caught and repeated by an increasing number of God-sent messengers. They swell in volume and majesty and power until now from all parts of the world the grand chorus resounds, filling the air with its message of joy and hope and faith and love, " Joy to the world, the Lord has come ! "