The Ancient Christ The Spoken Word. THE By C. H. A. BJERREGAARD. Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems?" HE Eternal in transiency is known in the physical world as Energy, Heat, Light, and Sound. In spiritual language the order of these four is reversed. Sound or the Word comes first as the One that said "let there be Light," and with Light came Heat, and then Energy or Life, which brought forth "living things." This is also the most ancient order of the four, and Christmas is preeminently the feast of " the birth" of that power which is both the first and the last: Sound. Sound is not mere external noise or effect, but a cause, a living reality, and double in nature like a personality. In one aspect it is a mystery which lies beyond human consciousness. All we know of it is that it is; however, that which we have come to call "the subconscious mind" is more than aware of its existence. It feels its presence as immanent energy. Some of the ancients even thought they knew that it was the only attribute of what they called "Akasha," the Ether, or "the garment of God." Sound is the formative or creative quality of God's surroundings, the demiurges of classicism, the power of God" of St. Paul. In the understanding of old, motion, sound, and vibration would be a trinity. in unity of all that we may possibly perceive or know of the Deity, and thus the foundation of all science, art, and religion. In the mighty process of the world, motion carries us along and science demonstrates that fact. Vibration thrills through the heart and religion worships under its spell, but art speaks aloud in pure tonality, the energy of sound, and when it manifests itself in the human voice, the voice becomes the highest and farthest reaching of all powers in nature's realm. In another aspect sound is not only a mystery and the most profound energy; it is, as Hegel maintained, of all modes of expression the one best suited to the nature of the spiritual principle, because "while tones can not represent the objects of the external world in their real existence, they find their true content (life) in the inner sentiments of the soul, apart from all externality." In sculpture we overcome matter as mere mass and reduce it to form. In painting we negate form and reduce it to appearance or bearer of a color effect. In tone-work we do away with appearance by reducing it to a means of communication, and we centralize upon hearing, sense even more intellectual, more spiritual, than vision itself." In hearing, the spirit is "rather concentrated within itself and withdrawn from the external." For this reason, the word (sound), vocal or instrumental, becomes "the absolute philosophy of the emotions," or an expression of our "heart-beats," our "thoughts in a glow" or, as already said, the spiritual principle and its expression. For those who can perceive it, Christmas is the "heart-beat" of the year, the giving of thanks and presents, and the beginning of the new, the introduction into human life of a new power, a fresh effect, a greater love. All the heavenly host and nature-powers stand around in wonderment! Who is this Child? So much like us, yet so different! And why needs it a human support? It has no wings and is naked, yet surrounded by an aureole! Is it not that incarnation we have heard of and which all creation is awaiting as its completion and fulfilment ? "The One far-off divine event, To Which the whole creation moves." As far as a painting can express it, Karl Marr has pictured the mystery. Will the reader add the Doxology "Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye heavenly host!" frame with which her years began," and he who "feels in his heart the Lord Christ born" goes about and into the homes of men with God's sweet peace upon his face." He is that healthy man, whom Skredsberg has painted. He looks very much like any other man and even the pastor of the flock does not hear the new voice, but the people "heard him gladly" and brought, as we see, the sick and maimed to Him that He should heal them, and He who is Wholeness heals. Thus let us pass with song through the homes of men, bringing Christmas and health with us. Song is the incarnated Son of God and the great physician. Sound is the Eternal in Ultimates and so universal and incomprehensible is it, that all ages have wondered and marveled at the mystery: they instinctively felt hidden in it. Sound betrayed "the flowing of the eternal fountain invisible to man." It was perceived that everything has a voice, and that "there is ever a song somewhere," and that "in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God." The "longings of the nations" for a human form of the Word is heard across the ages, but the question "The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?" never quite satisfactorily answered, because these elements lacked the Human; they had no human voice that could speak to human hearts and minds. The Chaldeans, Zoroastrians of old, saw His star, "the boundless Hope that passed the heavens," and they knew and understood that hope is not a natural passion, nor an illusion, but a spiritual sentiment, an exaltation in which speaks the invisible Goodness that surrounds us. From that time men "began to call themselves by the name of the Lord," and the Word was a new theophany. a mystery! The same Word is spoken by each spectator, yet the same Word 66 was from the Beginning." It is the union of heaven and earth, of God Mrs. Hughes's Voice-Figure Showing the Linear Curves with Cross Vibration Lines. Zmurko has pictured the event for us. The time is those dreary hours before sunrise, when the chill of night penetrates to marrow and bone; when the blood seems to have lost its vigor and the half lights draw weird spectres on the imagination. The desert is more dreadful than at midnight, the wild beasts hunt for prey, and the desolation is crushing. A solitary family, halfnaked and destitute, has seen the fire burn low, the waterjar emptied, and finds only a cactus as the nearest animated company. The hours are trying, and the cry "Watchman! what of the night?" has just been heard, when suddenly in the horizon appears a star, the only light seen in the heavens in this dark, unfriendly night. Thought arises spontaneously with that appearance, and bursting forth in the Voice, the Word, the Christ, is born. The phenomenon of the star is external and can not be otherwise, because existence is conditioned by time and space, but the Word comes internally as power in the heart, as a flash of light upon the mind, and utters itself in the voice. It is both subjective and objective. It is 66 and man! It always was. By it came all things; "the whole world is vâkârambhana," is from vâk, Speech or the Word. "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." Where the Word is not, there the world is not. The Word is the life, the love, the light, and the law of existence. If the skeptic disbelieves it, let him look at the patterns of "living creatures after its kind" which actually have been created by the human speakingvoice of Mrs. Watts-Hughes. These images point to the identity of the human and the divine Mind: "that mystery where God-in-man is one with man-in-God." Look at the flowers, the corals, and the serpentine lines! And if he wants to know if the Word or the human voice has the power of destruction, let him inform himself about Tyndall's experiments with sound upon glass, etc., and he will marvel at the almighty Word and doubt no more. In his heart there will be Christmas, and his mind will reverberate with a Voice of Order and Rhythm. Christmas is not of time and place, but "beyond the things of sense Beyond occasions and events." nese for the same sentence, if literally translated, would read, "Glory be to the Manifested Word (or voice), Boddhisatwa," where Boddhisatwa implies the Supreme Being in human form. In other words, where the Great Breath or Sound vibrates there is Christmas. no There is sound in inanimate nature, but not voice: hence Christmas, no birth of the saving force of life. Articulate speech is Bethlehem and the manger; is Mary the bearer of the Christ, the creative Word, the Great Breath. The song of a bird or the note of an insect conveys more force to heart and mind than does an unspiritual voice. There is more speech in the chirps of a grasshopper, though its musical apparatus is outside its body, than in an unregen Mrs. Hughes's Daisy Voice-Figure. The Ancient Christ is also the New Christ; the Oriental Christ is also the Western Christ. There was Christ in the Memra, the Honover, the Vâk, and Sarasvati, the goddess of speech, brought it with her. In Japan to-day |