Article December 22, 1928 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Charles P. Anderson, Galen Lee Rose, Robert A. Greenwell

[Rt. Rev. Charles P. Anderson, Episcopal Bishop of Chicago, in the Boston Globe, Massachusetts]

In its final analysis, Christmas means that the greatest fact in the world is God. Millions of people are uttering benevolent sentiments this Christmas season. Even those who do not stop to inquire about the origin and meaning of Christmas are caught up into this atmosphere of good will. The air is full of it. For the time being, it is a different and a better world. Everybody is wishing everybody else merriment, happiness, and prosperity. Homes are touched with the Christmas spirit of kindness. The churches are thronged with people. Some say that the great Christmas festivals were borrowed from pagan custom or from the mystery religions which flourished in civilizations past. But the origin of Christmas Day is a person: a unique child was born. His name was Jesus. He was born in Bethlehem; cradled in a manger. When that child was born, the world began to change. Liberty, fraternity, and equality began to be born. Slavery began to be abolished. War started out on its long journey toward extinction. Schools and hospitals began to come into existence. A new sacredness was attached to home and wife and child and mother. These things did not all happen at once. They have not completely happened yet. The kingdom of God is in the process of becoming, but the world cannot be indoctrinated with the teachings of Christ [Jesus] without becoming a better world. The meanign of Christmas is that the greatest fact in the world is God—that He is good, not bad; that He is benevolent; that He is love, not hate. ... The only gift worthy of Him is one that can be given by rich and poor alike; it is the gift of our hearts to Him.

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