Christian Belief and Life Author:Andrew Preston Peabody General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1876 Original Publisher: Roberts Subjects: Christianity Christian life Education / Higher Religion / Sermons / General Religion / Sermons / Christian Religion / Christian Ministry / Preaching Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no ... more »illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: VI. JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. (christmas.) "lam the light of the world." -- John viii. 12. '"TPHE day of the year on which our Saviour was born is entirely unknown. When it was first attempted to fix the date, different traditions of equal claims to authenticity assigned several different days, in January, April, and May. We have no trace of the celebration of the twenty-fifth of December till the fourth century, when a Pagan festival was Christianized for this purpose, with an appropriateness which only surrounds the observance with richer and more sacred associations than could attach themselves even to a birthday. This was the day of the Roman feast of the " Birth of the Sun." For several successive months, reaching each day a lower meridian altitude, and describing a briefer circuit than the preceding day, the sun had been withdrawing its vivifying, fertilizing rays, till the whole earth seemed sinking into the embrace of frost and night. Bat, the solstice passed, the sun climbs ever higher, and moves in an ever longer path, extending its sway, increasing its triumphs, till the morning meets the evening twilight, and the lord of day, conqueror and sovereign, looks down on a subject world. Thus had man reached his winter-solstice of ignorance and of guilt, -- darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the nations, when there arose upon the desolation and death-shadow of a godless world the sun whi...« less