The Two Christmas Celebrations, A.D. I. and MDCCCLV | Page 3

power to convince and persuade earnest men. The people heard him gladly, and followed him from place to place, and could not hear enough of him and his new form of religion,--so much did it commend itself to simple-hearted women and men. Some of them wanted to make him their king.
But while the people loved him, the great men of his time--the great Ministers in the Hebrew church, and the great Politicians in the Hebrew state--hated him, and were afraid of him. No doubt some of these ministers did not understand him, but yet meant well in their opposition; for if a man had all his life been thinking about the "best manner of circumcision," or about "the mode of kneeling in prayer," he would be wholly unable to understand what Jesus said about love to God and to man. But no doubt some of them knew he was right, and hated him all the more for that very reason. When they talked in their libraries, they admitted that they had no faith in the old forms of religion; but when they appeared in public they made broad their phylacteries, and enlarged the borders of their garments; and when they preached in their pulpits, they laid heavy burdens on men's shoulders, and grievous to be borne. The same thing probably took place then which has happened ever since; and they who had no faith in God or man, were the first to accuse this religious genius with being an infidel!
So, one night they seized Jesus, tried him before daylight next morning, condemned him, and put him to death. The seizure, the trial, the execution, were not effected in the regular legal form,--they did not occupy more than twelve hours of time,--but were done in the same wicked way that evil men also used in Boston when they made Mr. Simms and Mr. Burns slaves for life. But Jesus made no resistance; at the "trial" there was no "defence;" nay, he did not even feel angry with those wicked men; but, as he hung on the cross, almost the last words he uttered were these,--"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Such wicked men killed Jesus, just as in Old England, three hundred years ago, the Catholics used to burn Protestants alive; or as in New England, two hundred years ago, our Protestant fathers hung the Quakers and whipped the Baptists; or as the Slaveholders in the South now beat an Abolitionist, or whip a man to death who insists on working for himself and his family, and not merely for men who only steal what he earns; or as some in Massachusetts, a few years ago, sought to put in jail such as speak against the wickedness of Slavery.
After Jesus was dead and buried, some of his followers thought that he rose from the dead and came back to life again within three days, and showed himself to a few persons here and there,--coming suddenly and then vanishing, as a "ghost" is said to appear all at once and then vanish, or as the souls of other dead men are thought to "appear" to the spiritualists, who do not, however, see the ghosts, but only hear and feel them. Very strange stories were told about his coming to men through closed doors, and talking with them,--just as in our time the "mediums" say the soul of Dr. Franklin, or Dr. Channing, or some great man comes and makes "spiritual communication." They say, that at last, he "was parted from them, and carried up into heaven," and "sat on the right hand of God."
His friends and followers went about from place to place, and preached his doctrines; but gradually added many more of their own. They said that he was the Anointed, the Messiah, the Christ, who was foretold in the Old Testament, and that did strange things called Miracles; that at a marriage feast, where wine was wanted, he changed several barrels of water into wine of excellent quality; that he fed five thousand men with five loaves, walked on the water, opened the eyes, ears, and mouths of men born blind, deaf, and dumb, and at a touch or a word brought back a maimed limb. They called him a SAVIOUR, sent from God to redeem the Jews, and them only, from eternal damnation; next, said that he was the Saviour of all mankind,--Jews and Gentiles too; that he was a Sacrifice offered to appease the wrath of God, who had become so angry with his children that he intended to torment them all forever in hell. By and by his followers were called CHRISTIANS,--that is, men who took Jesus for the Christ of the Old Testament; and in their preaching they did not make much