unrest, and it is finding out that this can be done by him who is mighty
to save people from their sins. All who put their trust in him are
blessed with purity and peace. In this great world, lost in sin and
beaten upon by infinite mystery, there is only one voice that comes like
music across our life with power to cleanse and comfort us; and this is
the Voice whose infant cry was first heard in Bethlehem. Let us now go
even unto Bethlehem while the song is in the air and see this Child and
worship at his feet.




XVIII. Was a Child the Best Christmas Gift to the World?


When we come to think of it, does not a child seem an insignificant and
disappointing gift for God to make to the world? After so long
preparation and so great promises and hopes, would we not have expected
some greater and more wonderful gift? But a child is so common; millions
are born every month; there is nothing unique and wonderful about a
child. Why did God not rather give some invention or discovery or piece
of knowledge that would revolutionize and bless the world? Would he not
have done enormously more for mankind if in the first century of our era
he had given them the printing press, or the steam engine, or the
electric light? May there not yet be waiting for us some invention or
knowledge that will work wonders beyond anything we have dreamed and
shower material comforts on the world?

This thought grows out of our blind materialism which leads us to think
that matter is the master of mind, circumstance more important than