But the angels sang, "Good will toward men." Without that their song
would not have been complete. For we are all ready to say, at such
words as I have been speaking, "Ah! pleasant enough, and pretty
enough, if they were but possible; but they are not possible. It is
in the nature of man to be selfish. Men have gone on warring,
grudging, struggling, competing, oppressing, cheating from the
beginning, and they will do so to the end."

Yes, it is not in the NATURE of man to do otherwise. In as far as
man yields to his nature, and is like the selfish brute beasts, it is
not possible for him to do anything but go on quarrelling, and
competing, and cheating to the last. But what man's nature cannot
do, God's grace can. God's good will is toward you. He loves you,
He wills--and if He wills, what is too hard for Him?--He wills to
raise you out of this selfish, quarrelsome life of sin, into a
loving, brotherly, peaceful life of righteousness. His spirit, the
spirit of love by which He made and guides all heaven and earth, the
spirit of love in which He gave His only Son for you, the spirit of
love in which His Son Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for you, and
took on Himself a meaner state than any of you can ever have--the
likeness of a slave--that spirit is promised to you, and ready for
you. That little baby in the manger at Bethlehem--God sacrificing
Himself for you in the spirit of love--is a sign that that spirit of
love is the spirit of God, and therefore the only right spirit for
you and me, who are men and women made in the image of God. That
babe in the manger at Bethlehem is a sign to you and me, that God
will freely give us that spirit of love if we ask for it. For He
would not have set us that example, if He had not meant us to follow
it, and He would not ask us to follow it, if He did not intend to
give us the means of following it. Therefore, my friends, it is