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Show Kathleen Norris Says: The Debt We Owe to Christmas BeB Syndicate. WNU Features. I " this could be brought home to our children, this incalculable debt that they owe to Jesus Christ, whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas, it might solve tome of the great problems that we mothers face" By KATHLEEN NORRIS CHRISTMAS seems to me this year quite different from all the other Christmases I ever have known. :;. It has always meant holly and the tree, presents -and roaring open fires, and all the family gathered for the feast. It has always meant special music and special services at church, and of later years especially, much serious wondering won-dering thought of the little baby whose life was to be the most important ever lived by man. I have marvelled anew every year over the facts of His life; the poverty and obscurity, the complete unimportance of all His associates, even of His persecutors, the strange teaching that was received by a few poor peasants, and the death of a common criminal that they made Him die. Strange teachings indeed. It contradicted con-tradicted everything that men had ever believed. It discounted force and hate. It voiced the incredible doctrine that love was the only power, pow-er, and that love fulfilled all the laws of heaven and earth. They didn't believe be-lieve Him, and they killed Him, and His forlorn obscure followers faced the great warring world of that day, and of the new worlds and the expanded ex-panded days to come, with just a few quoted precepts as their heritage. And that heritage grew and spread and thundered down the ages and reached unknown countries and unborn un-born peoples oh, yes, polluted and twisted and misinterpreted and betrayed be-trayed sometimes, it is true, but still the doctrine of forgiveness and brotherhood. Human weakness delayed de-layed it, but nothing could kill it, because it is the truth. So much we all know, so much we all feeL at Christmas time. Sudden New Light. But like a window opening to sudden new light, it has come to me in these terrible years of war that we owe Christianity a tremendous debt over and above the spiritual value it gives us. That Christianity, and the passionate love it awakened in men's hearts, is the actual ark of civilization, and that it ought to be fostered as a sacred possession by everyone who hopes for a new world, believer or non-believer. The great Hebrew religion, from which the life of Christ was derived, did more than build temples. It built libraries, hospices, colleges; it laid down a public and a domestic law. What other element ever did? These things do not exist, in oriental ori-ental countries, where the great masses of the people , even today live and die In obscure superstitions as to evil eyes, caste, black magic. They do not build cities, railways, bridges, roads. The orient is almost without these things, as it is without modern conveniences, sewers, telephones, tele-phones, paving, schools, hospitals, libraries. li-braries. I have seen swarming dark communities, hundreds of them, in India and China, into which no one of these things ever had been introduced; intro-duced; where the compounds are icy puddles for eight months a year, and even such simple luxuries as a gas stove or bureau, a change of shoes or a potato had actually never been seen. Extraordinary as it would be to state that the miraculous life of Jesus Christ had anything to do with Europe's scientific and material progress, and the unbelievable growth of our own world, yet the fact remains that the believing nations, na-tions, the Europe of yesterday and the western hemisphere of today. THE FOUNDATION European civilization was erected upon the ethical foundation foun-dation of Christianity. All the great accomplishments of the Middle Ages were achieved by men who believed in the religion reli-gion of Christ. Even today, practically all those splendid and noble institutions that distinguish dis-tinguish our civilization from that of the ancient eastern cultures have come down to us from centuries that were activated acti-vated by a lively Christian faith. Hospitals, schools, homes for the aged, codes of law protecting pro-tecting individual rights, freedom free-dom of speech, equality of women . . . all these and much more has been the outgrowth of the great religion founded over 1,900 years ago. It seems ironic, when most of the Christian nations of the world are engaged in the greatest war in history, to say that Christianity has inspired all that is great and good on this earth. Yet, in a sense, the very fact that there is a war being waged, that there are so many millions of people willing will-ing to fight and suffer and die for the principals of justice and freedom that are the very essence of the religion of Christ, is the best testimonial to ever-living power of that great faith. are the nations that cling to Him, profess fidelity to Him, no matter how far they fall away from the humility and charity that He preached. Inspired Medieval Marvels. It began, of course, with the brotherhood of the early church, with the sharing of bread and wine. It went on to those early documents, to that wealth of priceless paintings, to the great cathedrals that simple men built for love of Him. Even today to-day our painters do not rival those early expressions of love and devotion de-votion to the Madonna and her baby; even today our architects marvel at the beauty of Chartres Cathedral and Canterbury and Rheims. Faith built all these; faith inspired the great musical compositions, composi-tions, and the chorals and requiems, and afterward the secular world took hold of these patterns and gave us all we know of modern art and music. It may be that after (he war we shall have to begin all over again in a stable with a baby; begin with forgiveness and brotherhood, begin to realize that not only do His churches carry His name down the ages to us today, but that every other good and wise thing we have our hospitals and libraries, our Red Cross and our schools, our laws, our talk at dinner tables, our plans for a better future, all stem from that one life. If this could be brought home to our children, this incalculable debt that they owe to Jesus Christ, whose birthday we celebrate on Christmas, it might solve some of the great problems we mothers face. Civilization Civiliza-tion will increase only when we get back as close as we can to the law that tells us that by this shall we be known as Christ's followers, that we love one another. That love fulfills ful-fills the law. That His burden is easy. That He is the way and the truth and the light. That we have only to seek to find Him. i |