the angels, as we have been used to reading it, was a
threefold message; of glory to God, peace on earth, and good-will among
men; but the better scholarship of the Revised Version now reads in the
verse a twofold message. First, there is glory to God, and then there
is peace on earth to the men of good-will. Those, that is to say, who
have the good-will in themselves are the ones who will find peace on
earth. Their unselfishness brings them their personal happiness. They
give themselves in good-will, and so they obtain peace. That is the
true spirit {77} of the Christmas season. It is the good-will which
brings the peace. Over and over again in these months of feverish
scrambling for personal gain, men have sought for peace and have not
found it; and now, when they turn to this generous good-will, the peace
they sought comes of itself. Many a man in the past year has had his
misunderstandings or grudges or quarrels rob him of his own peace; but
now, as he puts away these differences as unfit for the season of
good-will, the peace arrives. That is the paradox of Christianity. He
who seeks peace does not find it. He who gives peace finds it
returning to him again. He who hoards his life loses it, and he who
speeds it finds it:--

"Not what we give, but what we share,
For the gift without the giver is bare;
Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,--
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me."

That is the sweet and lingering echo of the angels' song.

{78}

XXXI

THE SECRET OF HEARTS REVEALED

_Luke_ ii. 30-35.

The prophecy of the aged Simeon for the infant Christ was this,--that
through him the secrets of many hearts should be revealed. Jesus, that
is to say, was not only to read the secrets of others' hearts, but he
was to enable people to read their own hearts. They were to come into
self-recognition as they came to him. They were to be disclosed to
themselves. You know how that happens in some degree when you fall in
with other exceptional lives. You meet a person of purity or
self-control or force, and there waken in you kindred impulses, and you
become aware of your own capacity to be better than you are. The touch
of the heroic discovers to you something of heroism in yourself. The
contagion of nobleness finds a susceptibility for that contagion in
yourself.

So it was that this disclosure of their hearts to themselves came to
the people who met with {79} Jesus Christ