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January 13, 1909. THE PRESBYTERI
twentieth century as it was on that glorious night upon
the hills of Bethlehem, when heaven came clown to
earth and angels sang to the shepherds that evangel
that brought the new star into our heavpn?
lie.
light all along the track of time, and giving to the sinblind
vision of man a glimpse of what redemption
should mean to a lost world.
The natal day of our Redeemer! "Awake and sing,
ye that dwell in the dust." It is no earthly Prince that
claims your loyalty and your praise. In the little stable
at Bethlehem. Immanuel (God with us) saw the dawn
of the first Christmas day. And on that day the Father's
messengers came to herald his coming. Heaven
Tejoiced with earth over redemption begun.
God in the person of his Son dwelling in human flesh,
is the great mystery of the ages. He becomes "an infant
of days," lived in the homes of men ; and that he
might sympathize with every phase of human life, hungered.
thirsted, suffered as other mortals, "being in all
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Through thirty-three years this wonderful Savior lived
daily in contact with a lost, ruined world, his pure nature
hourly enduring the agony of sin's unhallowed
touch?even in his own disciples. Betrayed by Judas,
denied by Peter, he went to Calvary and there bore our
sins, surrendering to the Father the life he so freely gaye
for the sins of men.
When we celebrate the birth of this glorious Redeemer.
we should not fail 1 J?1 *
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in the world's history, when Jesus, hanging upon the
cross, said, "It is finished." 'And although men denied
and reviled him, heaven strengthened him. and earth,
amid the earthquake shock and the thick darkness that
hid so vile a deed even from its perpetrators, sympathized
with her God. We should also remember Easter
dawn, the open tomb, the shining angels, and the glad
message, "He is not here, but is risen."
It was the wonderful power of the resurrection, the
crowning act of redemption, that gave to the pen of
Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, those wonderful
1 iitrs* ?
worcis, 1 nat i may know him, and the power of his
resurrection."
Paul did not believe in a dead Christ, but realized that
"he liveth and abideth forever."
The risen Christ is the vital point in the Christian's
creed.
For Paul affirmed with great confidence. "We shall
live with him by the power of God."
The power of the resurrection, that brought Jesus
again from the dead, shall be manifest in every believer
in Jesus as the Redeemer. Being united to him by a
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from corruption, "This mortal shall put on immortality,"
and we shall realize, in deed and in truth, the power of
his resurrection.
Well may we gladsome be, each Christmas morning,
For it is herald of a greater day,
When we shall greet our resurrection dawning,
And leave behind these tenements of clay.
Floral Manse, S. C.
AN OF THE SOUTH. II
BAPTIZED FOR THE DEAD.
By Dr. Webster.
"They that are baptized" means those who, as we
say today, have united with the church, who have confessed
Christ or made a public profession of their faith.
Now Paul says that some had been led to take this step
by reason of the dead, or on account of the dead. By "the
dead," we may understand him to mean not so much
those who have lived well and have died nobly like the
martyrs and other "sceptered spirits who rule us from
their urns," as those of their own kith and kin who
have fallen asleep in Jesus. "The death of Christians,"
says our commentator, "leads to the conversion of survivors,"
who in the first instance "for the cal-e of
dead" (their beloved dead), and in hope of reunion turn
to Christ?for example, as when a dying mother wins
her son by the appeal, "Meet me in heaven." In Croiinth
among the accessions to the church may have been
households who came to this decision on account of the
persuasion of dying lips. This may have been well
known to all in the Corinthian Church.
Paul's point is that if the dead are not raised, there
will be no reunion of the spirits parted by death, although
they have pledged each other to meet again. "It
has often happened," writes Ian Maclaren, "that at the
touch of this unseen hand, hard and sceptical men have
arisen and set their faces towards God for the hope of
seeing again a golden head on which the sun was ever
shining.7' He is speaking of the little children who
went out from us, and we have not seen them since.
Many of us must enroll ourselves among those who
were baptized on account of the dead.
"What led you to Christ?" The question was asked
of a young man who had come before tbe session. The
answer was, "We were engaged to be married and she
died." Only another way of saying. "I come to be baptized
on account of one who is dead." "Doctor " salrl o
pastor who was dying, "can I live till noonday? I am
glad you think I can. Then I may see Mr. B. He cannot
he here much before noon." That man of God was
dead at noon, but before he passed away he had pleaded
once more with Mr. B., and not in vain. Thirty years'
service in the church session and in the Sunday School
attested the change that came over that man, who was
baptized as a follower of Christ by reason of the words
and the life and the love of his pastor now dead.
Does it not bring us close to the beloved Paul as we
find, if this interpretation is correct, that in his churches,
as well as in ours, were not a few who owed their con
version under God to the words spoken by kinsmen and
friends while they were yet with us, and especially as
they went out from us on their journey home??The
Christian Intelligencer.
The faith that will not trust God will bear watching
in civil contracts.
The mission of a mission is to save the lost and bring
in the kingdom of God.