And to-morrow we shall keep our first
Christmas, not in flesh-pleasing, and in reveling and in fullness of
bread, but in small beginning and great weakness, as our Lord Christ kept
it when He was born in a stable and lay in a manger.
"To-morrow, God willing, we will all go forth to do good, honest
Christian work, and begin the first house-building in this our New
England--it may be roughly fashioned, but as good a house, I'll warrant
me, as our Lord Christ had on the Christmas Day we wot of. And let us not
faint in heart because the wisdom of the world despiseth what we do.
Though Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobias the Ammonite, and Geshem the
Arabian make scorn of us, and say, 'What do these weak Jews? If a fox go
up, he shall break down their stone wall;' yet the Lord our God is with
us, and He can cause our work to prosper.
"The wisdom of the Spirit seeth the grain of mustard-seed, that is the
least of all seeds, how it shall become a great tree, and the fowls of
heaven shall lodge in its branches. Let us, then, lift up the hands that
hang down and the feeble knees, and let us hope that, like as great
salvation to all people came out of small beginnings of Bethlehem, so the
work which we shall begin to-morrow shall be for the good of many
nations.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126