Christ Before and After Birth

There came a little time ago into the study of a New York pastor a successful business man of that city. The pastor asked him the question of this text, “What think ye of the Christ?” That man said with perfect frankness, “I suppose I never do think about Christ.” Turning to him the pastor asked, “When were you born?”

He said, “In 1843.” The pastor said, “Before Christ or after Christ?”

He was confused. The pastor spared him further questions. It is an astounding thing that there can be found, in a land of civilization and culture and Christianity, a man who has no definite conviction regarding Jesus Christ. It is astounding that a man claiming the honors of average intelligence, and especially of liberal culture, should have no definite convictions regarding Jesus Christ.

Such an admission argues some degree of mental vacuity and of moral inanity. Here is a business man who writes business letters, and dates those letters, and yet has no special thought of Jesus Christ, who has given the world a new calendar. Here is a man who visits halls of statuary and observes the finest products of artistic genius in sculpture, and has no definite convictions regarding Jesus Christ. Take away from the halls of statuary all the figures suggested by the religion of Jesus Christ, and you make the most glorious halls of sculpture indescribably bare.

Wander through galleries of paintings and observe that the religion, the life, the soul of Jesus Christ, has been the inspiration of the noblest works of art as depicted on immortal canvas, and then admit that you have no definite conviction regarding Jesus Christ. Listen to the greatest music of the world, Bach, Haydn, Handel, Mendelssohn, Mozart— the music that thrills the soul, that ennobles the heart, that inspires the life, all born out of the brain and heart of Jesus Christ — and then say you have no definite convictions about