AGE TWuU. THE SOWER Weekly Department of Religious and Secular Thought Contributed w REV. JAMES A. TURNER, Pastor, M. E. Church, Patton, Pa. CHRISTMAS — THE REN’S MAGNA CHARTA. CHILD- Christmas is pre-eminently the high festival of the children, for on that day we celebrate the birth of a baby utter who was, in his adult years, to what may appropriately be thought of as the Children's Magna Charta Jesus was born in a country that was being misruled by a totalitariar 1 dictator who cared for nothing but his own self-aggradizement, and who, in order to advance his own selfish in- terests, murdered the members of his own family, his closest of kin, his rel- atives, his courtiers, his rivals, his count the children under two years of age n one cal had yeen born of the towns of his empire be- » he had been told that a child there who might, in| the vears to come, be a successor to, | or a rivel of his for the throne upon which he sat. Herod was an ancient ‘vmen, and finally, massacred alt ! Bible the boys and girls should | these the best, for it marks the be- | | ginning of a new day for them. When | neck, and that he should be sunk in| the depths of the sea. Suffer the little | children, and forbid them not, to come | to me; for to such belongeth the | Kingdom of God." Perhaps of all the verses in the love Jesus took that little child and set | him in the midst He did something | for the children of the world that had | never been done before. He gave chil- | aren a position of importance that day, so that ever since they have re- | ceived special care and love. | Before Jesus came, children were not put in the midst at all. Indeed, they were often cruelly treated. For example, in ancient Rome if alittle baby came to a home where it was not wanted, or if the parents thought they had enough children to look af- | ter, they would carry it out to al cross road and there they would leave | it down on the ground and go away. | There the helpless little thing would | cry until its strength was exhausted | and it died, or until someone came | alon gand picked it up to make al slave of it, or until a wild dog or a| wolf came along and ate it. | In ancient Carthage there was a| great metal idol with hands that | were stretched out and sloping down- | orutalitarian who ordered purges in| wards, and so were always empty and | “liquidate” any possible op-| waitin gfor someone to fill them. | arder to no on to his infamous and detesta- | This great idol was heated by a fire ble ambitions—but im this purge of kindled near it. Then they brought | ittle children he failed to “get” the little children as sacrifices and put little one who was to eventually, in| them into its red hot hands to fall the aces to come, put an énd to all of | down {frizzling at its feet. One day his loathsome breed, —the breed that| two hundred children suffered that destroys little children with the | cruel fate. sword, with ligour, poverty, wunder-! In China newly-born baby girls privilege, starvation wages, exploit-| were thrown into a stone building ation, slums, sweatshops, ignorance, | where they were left to die, if their and every other hellish thing that parents did not want them. In India stands like a vicious demon ‘in the | aths of those little ones on their way | to adulthood, decency, success and to God. Growing up in the midst of condi-| that have never heard of Jesus and tions which tolerated war, graft, ex- ploitation. poverty, hate, and all the rest of that spawn of hell aforementioned, ignorance, | the forest to be eaten by wild beasts dogmatic | and to die on ash heaps and garbage and dumps, just as the Romans left them seaing what it was doing to children, | at Cross Roads long ago. and, though them, to the race of man, | Jesus “called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of his disciples who were quarreling as to who was to be the greatest in the Kingdom of Gad, and said: Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter in- to the Kingdom of God. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same. is the greatest in the Kingdom of God. And whosoev- er shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But who- soever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his | them so they will conceive and beget | ainst children in such a bald fashion. there are thousands of little children and girl wodiws very badly treated, so that they would rather die than live. And in Africa there are tribes are leaving little children out in Today we don't & those sins ag- Instead we put guns in their little hands and teach them to goose-step and spit venom at people of another | race and country. Or, we sell to their parents, for a profit, of course, alco- | holic liquors that make beasts of | their children in moronic stupidity and physical and mental degeneracy, and then starve them of education, of clothes, good times, culture, respecta- bility, hope, future, and every good thing that a child has a right to have in life. 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Or, we di- vert taxes from the support of sch- ools to the building of battleships and the manufacture of war munitions, and send the young people out to pound the streets for unsecured jobs for which they are not prepared, because there was no money to educate them. Or, we destroy the morale of their parents by keeping them out of work, or underpaying them if they have work, and thus keep them for- ever in the low brackets of cultural existence where they become nothing but moronic, stupid serfs that don’t know o rcare what all this thing of living and laboring and suffering is No, we are not so crude and ob- vious about destroying children as | the ancients were. We don't throw them into little stone houses to die, or leave them out in the elements to perish of exposure or be eaten by the wild beasts. We don’t throw them out on the dump heaps and abandon them tc their fate,—we go about the busi- nes sof doing away with them by raising them to be cannon fodder, or, | better yet, we load them into our fine | modern sedans an dtake them out into the country for a ride or a visit on Sundays, away from Sunday Sch- | ool and Church, and teach them to | scorn and make light of such sacred obligations and duties, and thus shriv- el up their souls into mean and con- temptible proportions, and, the while we saturate them with carbon mon- oxide gas, we direct their attentions and interests to material concerns and transient pleasures and sports and amusements of dubious value so that in the end we have slaughtered the innocents as effectively as and with more disastrous results than did the brutalitarian Herod of two milleniums ago. Erika Mann, in her brochure, “Sch- ool for Barbarians,” relates how the’ life of the German children has been invaded by the state until all tender- nes sin them is dead; force, battle, war, conquering are all they will know, ; Dr. Frank D. Slutz warns that “We Christians should recognize that our children that our children are so ed-' ucated that they will keep their fai- about. | 5 It's Christmas the year around where these pictures were taken: Christmas, Fla.; Bethlehem, Pa.; Nazareth, Pa., and Santa Claus, Ind. Each year thousands of Christmas cards are forwarded to postoffices at these communities for stamp cancellation. th in democracy, that they will de. sire to strengthen and enlarge demo- cratic methods, that they will be ac- tive partners of God, practicing a high ethic and being gracious, fair, firm, tolenane, celan, courageous. What kind of history of tomorrow are | we writing in the lives of our child- ren today?” “Jesus knew that any kingdom of heaven must have a solution for the problems of childhood before it could solve the problems of manhood,” says Dr. Roy L. Smith, and then goes on | to sav: “Indeed, when the problems of childhood are solved the problems of all the rest of life are solved. Give | the child the assurance of food, clo- thin gand shelter; a world in which he shall have justice and opportunity —an outlook on life that is whole- some and happy, and you have elim- inated the causes of war, poverty, disease and wretchedness. Jesus set the little child in the midst of the Kngdom because the child's interests are the focus of the Kingdom's interests. There is no kingdom of heaven that does not pro- vide a heaven for little children. Jesus declared that drowning wis “etrer for a man than that he should become the agent of a child’s disas- | ter. Christmas is an appropriate time to consider the terrible millstone be- ing hung around the neck of little children by the liquor traffic. Into millions of homes at this Christmas | season liquor is being carried to pro- | vide “Christmas Cheer,” but it is | safe to say that there is not a child [in the world who is happier because | the liquor is there. Read the columns of the daily pa- | pers and note the tragedies that are | coming into the lives of little child- ren through alcohol. What millstones are being hung about the necks of | little children by the war sy$em! Debts, hatreds, feuds, animosities, | scars, poverty, disease—what a terr- | ible load the little children stagger | under! Think of the millstones they must carry because of race prejudice! Bab- ies are born on Christmas day against | whom the door of opportunity is | shut before they are born for no other reason than that they were born | of a despised race, an ostracized col- or, or a declassed economic group. All these millstones about the necks of {itue children were hung there by adult sinners.” Someone relates this significant in- cident: “Two men were discussing a weighty matter in the presence of the young son of one of them. Embarrass- ed somewhat by the endless ques- tion of thes boy ,the father gave him a picture puzzle on the face of which was a map of the world. The boy was intrigued by the puzzle and immedi- ately set about to solve it. The father thought that he would be relieved of bother for some time and continued iis conversation with his friend. To his amazement, freedom from annoy- ance was very brief, for in two min- utes the boy had the picture put to- gether again and once more was dis- turbing the father. ‘How in the name of heaven did you get the world to- gether in so short a time-’ asked the father. ‘Oh, that was easy, said the boy. ‘There was a picture of a man on the back of it and if you put the man together right, the world will take care of itself.” The boy spoke more wisely than he knew. The making of a Christian world is the inspirational and educa- tiona ltask of training children in the qualities which characterize the Christmas spirit. “The road to Bethlehem rums right thro ugh The homes of foulks like men and you.” wi igo. P can New con hicl Mot legi: tion be | 31st. exte atio! lice: end the) mot the hug take whe and ery mot ear: Maj ing tim ing mof mas doll on will
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers