Two Christmas Celebrations

Minister of the 28th Congregational Society of Boston.

Two Christmas Celebrations.

A great many years ago, Augustus Caesar, then Emperor of Rome, ordered his mighty realm to be taxed; and so, in Judea, it is said, men went to the towns where their families belonged, to be registered for assessment. From Nazareth, a little town in the north of Judea, to Bethlehem, another little but more famous town in the south, there went one Joseph, the carpenter, and his wife Mary,--obscure and poor people, both of them, as the story goes. At Bethlehem they lodged in a stable; for there were many persons in the town, and the tavern was full. Then and there a little boy was born, the son of this Joseph and Mary; they named him JEHOSHUA, a common Hebrew name, which we commonly call Joshua; but, in his case, we pronounce it JESUS. They laid him in the crib of the cattle, which was his first cradle. That was the first Christmas, kept thus in a barn, 1856 years ago. Nobody knows the day or the month; nay, the year itself is not certain.

After a while the parents went home to Nazareth, where they had other sons,--_James_, Joses, Simon, and Judas,--and daughters also; nobody knows how many. There the boy JESUS grew up, and it seems followed the calling of his father; it is said, in special, that he made yokes, ploughs, and other farm-tools. Little is known about his early life and means of education. His outside advantages were, no doubt, small and poor; but he learned to read and write, and it seems became familiar with the chief religious books of his nation, which are still preserved in the Old Testament.

At that time there were three languages used in Judea, beside the Latin, which was confined to a few officials: 1. The Syro-Chaldaic,--the language of business and daily life, the spoken language of the common people. 2. The Greek,--the language of the courts of justice and official documents; the spoken and written language of the foreign traders, the aristocracy, and most of the more cultivated people in the great towns. 3. The old Hebrew,--the written and spoken language of the learned, of theological schools, of the priests; the language of the Old Testament. It seems Jesus understood all three.

At that time the thinking people had outgrown the old forms of religion, inherited from their fathers, just as a little girl becomes too stout and tall for the clothes which once fitted her babyhood; or as the people of New England have now become too rich and refined to live in the rough log-cabins, and to wear the coarse, uncomfortable clothes, which were the best that could be got two hundred years ago. For mankind continually grows wiser and better,--and so the old forms of religion are always getting passed by; and the religious doctrines and ceremonies of a rude age cannot satisfy the people of an enlightened age, any more than the wigwams of the Pequod Indians in 1656 would satisfy the white gentlemen and ladies of Boston and Worcester in 1856. The same thing happens with the clothes, the tools, and the laws of all advancing nations. The human race is at school, and learns through one book after another,--going up to higher and higher studies continually. But at that time cultivated men had outgrown their old forms of religion,--much of the doctrine, many of the ceremonies; and yet they did not quite dare to break away from them,--at least in public. So there was a great deal of pretended belief, and of secret denial of the popular form of religion. The best and most religious men, it seems likely, were those who had least faith in what was preached and practised as the authorized religion of the land.

In the time of David, many years before the birth of Jesus, the Hebrew nation had been very powerful and prosperous; afterwards there followed long periods of trouble and of war, civil and domestic; the union of the tribes was dissolved, and many calamities befell the people. In their times of trouble, religious men said, "God will raise us up a GREAT KING like DAVID, to defend and deliver us from our enemies. He will set all things right." For the Hebrews looked on David as the Americans on WASHINGTON, calling him a "man after God's own heart,"--that is, thinking him "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Sometimes they called this expected Deliverer, the MESSIAH, that is the ANOINTED ONE,--a term often applied to a king or other great man. Sometimes it was thought this or that special man, a king, or general, would be the Messiah, and deliver the nation from its trouble. Thus, it seems, that once it was declared that King HEZEKIAH would perform this duty; and indeed CRYUS, a foreigner, a king of Persia, was declared to be the MESSIAH, the Anointed One. But, at other times, they, who declared the Deliverer would come, seem to have had no particular man in their mind, but felt sure that somebody would come. At length the expectation of a Messiah became quite common; it was a fixed fact in the public opinion. But some thought the Deliverer, the Redeemer, the second David, would be one thing, some another; just as men now call their favorite candidate for the presidency a second Washington; but some think he will be a Whig, and support the Fugitive Slave Bill; some, a Democrat, and favor the enslavement of Kansas; while others are sure he will be a Republican, and prohibit the extension of Slavery; while yet others look for some Anointed Politician to abolish that wicked institution clear out of the land.

When the nation was in great peril, the people said, "the Messiah will soon come and restore all things;" but probably they had no very definite notion about the Deliverer or the work he was to do.

When Jesus was about thirty years old, he began to speak in public. He sometimes preached in the Meeting-Houses, which were called Synagogues,--but often out of doors, wherever he could gather the people about him. He broke away from the old established doctrines and forms. He was a come-outer from the Hebrew church. He told men that religion did not consist in opinions or ceremonies, but in right feelings and right actions; that goodness shown to men was worth more than sacrifice offered to God. In short he made Religion consist in Piety, which is Love to God, and Benevolence, which is Love to Men. He utterly forbid all vengeance, and told his followers "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." He taught that the soul was immortal,--a common opinion at that time,--and declared that men who had been good and kind here would be eternally happy hereafter, but the unkind and wicked would be cast "into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." He did not represent religion as a mysterious affair, the mere business of the priesthood, limited to the temple and the Sabbath, and the ceremonies thereof; it was the business of every day,--a great manly and womanly life.

Men were looking for the ANOINTED, the Messiah, and waiting for him to come. Jesus said, "I am the Messiah; follow me in the religious life, and all will be well. God is just as near to us now, as of old time to Moses and Elias. A greater than Solomon is here. The Kingdom of Heaven, a good time coming, is close at hand!"

No doubt he made mistakes. He taught that there is a devil,--a being absolutely evil, who seeks to ruin all men; that the world would soon come to an end, and a new and extraordinary state would miraculously take place, in which his followers would be abundantly rewarded, and his twelve most conspicuous friends would sit "sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Strange things were to happen in this good time which was coming. But spite of that, his main doctrine, which he laid most stress upon, was, that religion is piety and benevolence; for he made these the chief commandments,--"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."

He went about in various part of the country, talking, preaching, lecturing, making speeches, and exhorting the people to love each other and live a noble, manly life,--each doing to all as he would wish them to do to him. He recommended the most entire trust in God. The people came to him in great crowds, and loved to hear him speak; for in those days nobody preached such doctrines,--or indeed any doctrines with such power to convince and persuade earnest men. The people heard him gladly, and followed him from place to place, and could not hear enough of him and his new form of religion,--so much did it commend itself to simple-hearted women and men. Some of them wanted to make him their king.

But while the people loved him, the great men of his time--the great Ministers in the Hebrew church, and the great Politicians in the Hebrew state--hated him, and were afraid of him. No doubt some of these ministers did not understand him, but yet meant well in their opposition; for if a man had all his life been thinking about the "best manner of circumcision," or about "the mode of kneeling in prayer," he would be wholly unable to understand what Jesus said about love to God and to man. But no doubt some of them knew he was right, and hated him all the more for that very reason. When they talked in their libraries, they admitted that they had no faith in the old forms of religion; but when they appeared in public they made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments; and when they preached in their pulpits, they laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders, and grievous to be borne. The same thing probably took place then which has happened ever since; and they who had no faith in God or man, were the first to accuse this religious genius with being an infidel!

So, one night they seized Jesus, tried him before daylight next morning, condemned him, and put him to death. The seizure, the trial, the execution, were not effected in the regular legal form,--they did not occupy more than twelve hours of time,--but were done in the same wicked way that evil men also used in Boston when they made Mr. Simms and Mr. Burns slaves for life. But Jesus made no resistance; at the "trial" there was no "defence;" nay, he did not even feel angry with those wicked men; but, as he hung on the cross, almost the last words he uttered were these,--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Such wicked men killed Jesus, just as in Old England, three hundred years ago, the Catholics used to burn Protestants alive; or as in New England, two hundred years ago, our Protestant fathers hung the Quakers and whipped the Baptists; or as the Slaveholders in the South now beat an Abolitionist, or whip a man to death who insists on working for himself and his family, and not merely for men who only steal what he earns; or as some in Massachusetts, a few years ago, sought to put in jail such as speak against the wickedness of Slavery.