The Two Christmas Celebrations, A.D. I. and MDCCCLV | Page 4

ideas Jesus taught about man, God, and religion, or of his own great manly life; but they thought his DEATH was the great thing,--and that was the means to save men from eternal torment. Then they went further, and declared that Jesus was not the son of Joseph and Mary, but THE SON OF GOD and Mary,--miraculously born; next, that he was GOD'S ONLY SON, who had never had any child before, and never would have another; again, that he was a GOD who had lived long before Jesus was born, but for the then first time took the human form; and at last, that he was THE ONLY GOD, the Creator and Providence of all the universe; but was man also, the GOD-MAN. Thus, gradually, the actual facts of his history were lost out of sight, overgrown with a great mass of fictions, poetic and other stories, which make him a mythological character; the Jesus of fact was well-nigh forgot,--the Christ of fiction took his place.
Well, after the death of Jesus, his followers went from town to town, from country to country, preaching "Christ and him crucified;" they taught that the world would soon end, for Jesus would come back and "judge the world," raising the dead,--and then all who had believed in him would be "saved," but the rest would be "lost forever;" a new world would take the place of the old, and the Christians would have a good time in that Kingdom of Heaven. This new "spiritual world" would contain some extraordinary things; thus, "every grape-vine would have ten thousand trunks, every trunk ten thousand branches, every branch ten thousand twigs, every twig ten thousand clusters, every cluster ten thousand grapes, and every grape would yield twenty-five kilderkins of wine."
But everywhere they recommended a life of sobriety and self-denial, of industry and of kind deeds,--a life of religion. Everywhere the Christians were distinguished for their charity and general moral excellence. But the Jews hated them, and drove them away; the Heathens hated them, and put many to death with dreadful tortures; all the magistrates were hostile. But when the common people saw a man or a woman come out and die rather than be false to a religious emotion or idea, there were always some who said, "That is a strange thing,--a man dying for his God. There must be something in that religion! Let us also become Christians." So the new doctrine spread wide; not the simple religion of Jesus,--piety and morality; but what his followers called Christianity,--a mixture of good and evil. In two or three hundred years it had gone round the civilized world. Other forms of religion fell to pieces, one by one. Judaism went down with the Hebrew people, Heathenism went down, and Christianity took heir place. The son of Joseph and Mary, born in a stable, and killed by the Jews, was worshipped as the ONLY GOD all round the civilized world. The new form of religion spread very much as SPIRITUALISM has done in our time, only in the midst of worse persecution than the Mormons have suffered. At this day there are some two hundred and sixty millions of people who worship Jesus of Nazareth; most of them think he was God, the only God. But a small number of men believe that he was no God, no miraculous person, but a good man with a genius for religion. All the Christians think he was full of all manner of loving kindness and tender mercy. So all over the world to-day, among the two hundred and sixty millions of Christians, there is great rejoicing on account of his birth, which it is erroneously supposed took place on the 25th of December, in the year ONE. They sing psalms, and preach sermons, and offer prayers, and make a famous holiday. But the greater part of the people think only of the festival, and very little of the noble boy who was born so long ago in a tavern-barn in Judea. And of all the ministers who talk so much about the old Christ, there are not many who would welcome a new man who should come and do for this age the great service which Jesus did for his own time. But, as on the Fourth of July, slaveholders, and border ruffians, and kidnappers, and men who believe there is no higher law, ring their bells, and fire their cannons, and let off their rockets, making more noise than all those who honor and defend the great Principles of Humanity which make Independence Day famous,--so on Christmas, not only religious people, but Scribes, and Pharisees, and Hypocrites make a great talk about "Christ and him crucified;" when, if a man of genius for religion were now to appear, they