H. Wace.
Canterbury, January 1917.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| I. | The Christmas Message (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Christmas Day, 1914) | [1] |
| II. | Christmas and the War (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Christmas Day, 1915) | [16] |
| III. | The Things Seen and the Things not Seen (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Easter Day, 1915) | [28] |
| IV. | The Easter Message (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Easter Day, 1916) | [40] |
| V. | The Need and the Means of Right Judgment (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Whit Sunday, 1915) | [53] |
| VI. | The Advent Message and the War (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Advent Sunday, 1914) | [67] |
| VII. | Divine Judgment and Renovation (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, October 11th, 1914) | [82] |
| VIII. | Resistance unto Blood (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, Good Friday, April 21st, 1916) | [97] |
| IX. | Intercession for Kings and Rulers (preached in Canterbury Cathedral the Day of the King’s Accession, May 6th, 1915) | [105] |
| X. | The Christian Sanction of War (Address at the Service of Intercession in Canterbury Cathedral, August 9th, 1914) | [117] |
| XI. | The Warning of the Tower of Siloam (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, October 25th, 1914) | [129] |
| XII. | The Righteous Ideal (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, January 15th, 1915) | [143] |
| XIII. | Reasons for Intercession (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, June 17th, 1916) | [158] |
| XIV. | The Eternal Source of Goodness (preached at Holy Trinity Church, Margate, November 7th, 1915) | [173] |
| XV. | The National Ideal (preached in Canterbury Cathedral, January 3rd, 1915) | [188] |
| XVI. | Religion and War (from The Record, Thursday, September 3rd, 1916) | [203] |
| XVII. | Prayer for the Dead (from The Record, Friday, November 20th, 1914) | [215] |
| XVIII. | Christ and the Soldier (preached in Canterbury Cathedral at the Military Church Parade, September 27th, 1914) | [228] |
| XIX. | The Eternal Life of the Soul (preached in the Nave of Canterbury Cathedral at the Military Church Parade, October 15th, 1916) | [239] |
The Christmas Message.
A SERMON PREACHED ON CHRISTMAS DAY A.D. 1914.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”—St. Luke ii. 13, 14.
If Christmas this sad year is to be a real comfort and help to us, we must realize very clearly what it is that was the cause of the joy of the Angels, and has been always the source of the true joy of Christmas, during the nineteen hundred years or more since that first outburst of heavenly praise and song. The reason had been announced by one Angel to the shepherds abiding in the fields in the words, “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” The Jewish people were looking and longing for the Christ Who would come, as is expressed in Zacharias’ song, to deliver them from the hand of their enemies, and to grant unto them that they “might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of their life.” This was the promise which, as Zacharias said, had been given by the mouth of God’s prophets since the world began, for which they had craved through long suffering, and captivity, and disappointment; and it is this promise which the angel declared was now fulfilled. A Saviour had been born to them, One Who was able to realize for them the great hopes of blessing which the prophets had held out. He would be able, in the words of another angel, “to save them from their sins,” and by saving them from their sins to save them from the sufferings and sorrows which those sins had entailed upon them. By the birth of our Lord that had become an accomplished fact. There existed from that moment One Who stood between heaven and earth, between God and man, and united both—the Son of God and the Son of Man, with power “to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him,” and able, first by His sacrifice for our sins, and then by His exercise of the royal authority and power which are entrusted to Him, to put down all enemies under His feet, and to deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father, “that God may be all in all.”