CHAPTER V. RELATION OF CHURCH AND ORDERS. "So many Gods, so many Creeds "Religion is merely the law which binds man to his Creator: in purity it has but these elementsGod, the Soul and their mutual Recognition; out of which, when put in practice, springs Worship, Love and Reward. This law, like all others, is of divine origin like that, for instance, which binds the earth to the sun-was perfected in the beginning by its Author. Such, my brothers, was the religion of our Father Mizraim who could not have been blind to the formula of creation, nowhere so discernible as in the first faith and the earliest worship. Perfection is God; simplicity is perfection. The curse of curses. is that men will not let truths like these alone.” Ben Hur, P. 27. The Christian era began with the birth of a litle child, (the child Jesus), in a Khan in Bethlehem of Judea. The parents of this child-scions of the royal lineage of David-were on their way to Jerusalem to be taxed as required by a Roman edict. Mary and Joseph stopped over night at this Khan where the accouchment occurred occurred under auspicious circumstances. A brilliant star shone in the vicinity of the Khan which attracted the attention of astrologers, suggesting to them some portentous event. We learn from astranomical calculations that a remarkable conjunction of the planets of our system took place a short time before the birth of our Lord. This discovery by Kepler, 1604, led to investigations revealing the fact that this peculiar condition (which recurs every 800 years), makes the Bible story true to scientific research. "It is natural that a miraculous being should be heralded by a miraculaus star. His birth was a miracle, angels sang at his birth, miracles accompanied his life and crowned his death with the resurrection." S. S. Notes 1904 Peloubet. Shepherds, to whom the angels sung the annunciation song, are supposed to have been desecndants of Hebrew Royalty. "In that same country side were Shepherds out in the open fields, watching their flock that night, when an angel of the Lord suddenly stood by them and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were seized with fear. "Have no fear," the angel said. "For I bring you good news of a great joy in store for all the nation. This day there has been born to you, in the town of David, a Saviour who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be the sign for you. You will find the infant swathed, and laying in a manger. Then suddenly there appeared with the angle, a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and singing: 'Glory to God on high,' and 'on earth peace among men to whom he finds pleasure.' Now when the angels had left them and gone back to Heaven, the shepherds said to one another: "Let us go at once to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened of which the Lord has told us." So they went quickly and found Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in a manger; and when they saw it, they told of all that had been said to them of this child. All who heard the shepherds were astonished at their story, while Mary treasured up all that they said and dwelt upon it in her thoughts." There is a striking correspondence in the era of peace in which Jesus was born, and the universal kingdom of peace he came to ordain. The Temple of Janus at Rome was the shrine at which Roman warriors offered their devotions when undertaking a warlike expedition, or when returning from one. This Temple was now closed for the third time in seven hundred years, and, since Rome held unlimited sway, it signified world wide peace. The biographers of Jesus in their meager narrative, give us but a few glimpses of his early life. At the age of twelve, he appeared at the Temple in Jerusalem where he startled the priests by his conspicuous prescience. From that time until age thirty, all that we know of him is that he was, "subject to his parents," who lived in the litle village of Nazareth. After he had inaugurated his missionary propaganda, the relatives wondered at his erudition as he had never "learned letters," they having always known him as the "carpenter's son." At about thirty years of age, emerging from seclusion, Jesus began a most remarkable career at Cana of Galilee where he converted "water into wine." His doctrines and miracles held the nation spellbound from the time of the exploit at Cana until the last dramatic act of the tragedy at Calvary. The priests conspired and intrigued until they secured an order from Roman authority consigning him to the cross. They supposed that his death would annihilate his influence. But not so. Three days after the interment, the Roman soldiers that had been guarding his sealed tomb, rushed into the city, relating a strange story of an angel rolling away the stone from the sepulcher and that they, in fear, ran away. In all lands, the penalty of death awaits a soldier who deliberately deserts a post of duty and honor; but for some inexplicable reason this became a notable exception, as these guards appear to have escaped punishment. When the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii were recently explored in the interest of archaeology, Roman soldiers were found at their post of duty, buried underneath a mass of lava where the eruption caught them. They were evidently so well drilled that they would not leave their station without orders from their superiors, even to save their lives. The secret of the soldier guard's escape may be found in the testimony of the Roman Centurion, who doubtless expressed the concensus of human opinion at that time, regarding the character of Jesus, when, as he viewed the wierd phenomena attending the "sayings of the cross," that officer was led to exclaim: "This truly was the son of God." Soldiers that were loyal in the face of natural laws, |