The words and works of Christmas-tide show how the civilized globe bows to Jesus. Thousands of hearts exclaim, in Whittier's words: —
| Strike — Thou the Master, we Thy keys — |
| The anthem of our destinies. |
Out of Christ, its personification and inspiration, grew Christianity, and this is the third side of our Celestial City, — the Southern side, looking towards the equator, where there is perpetual summer; type of the spiritual summer, which “pure and undefiled religion” is designed to make, when there shall be no cold, no night, no storm of sin.
Though Jesus is the impetus and pulse of Christianity, yet Christianity is larger than its human founder, as the watch-wheels fill more space than the mainspring, as the body of a man, with its limbs and organs, is larger than the heart. Christianity is made up of “the glorious company of the apostles” and “the noble army of martyrs.” Its history, now covering nineteen centuries, includes within its domain Mary, Paul, John, Athanasius, Origen, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, and millions of other men and women.
The prefix Christian implies that Science is in a line with Christianity; and so it is. This religion's golden pages are graven o'er with records of women who were exposed to the wild beasts of the Coliseum, and the wilder license of a superstitious rabble; records of men forced into gladiatorial combats and thrust into boiling oil. Thousands suffered at the stake and on the scaffold, for Truth's sake. They might have escaped by simply throwing a pinch of incense upon some altar-fire, as an act of submission to the Pagan priesthood; or by presence
