When, after the fire, they came together, they inquired, “What shall we do?  Shall we rebuild here or shall we take another location?” Finally it was decided to build a new church on Copley Square.  That was many years ago.  They built a beautiful temple of worship.  It is still known everywhere as “Phillips Brooks’ Church,” so wonderfully did his personality enter into the project.

Now the second “hymn.”  When Phillips Brooks was a young man in Philadelphia he made a trip to the Holy Land.  As Christmas drew near he wrote and sent back to the girls and boys of his Sunday School, a Christmas poem.  The organist of his church composed music for the words, and this hymn was sung for the first time in Trinity church, Philadelphia.  It is a beautiful Christmas hymn.  Yes, it is my favorite.

    “Oh, little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie.”

MEMORY VERSE, Matthew 2:  6

    “Thou, Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the
    princes of Juda:  For out of thee shall come a Governor that shall
    rule my people Israel.”

MEMORY HYMN [121]

    "O little town of Bethlehem."

THE CHRISTMAS TREE

For a few years I lived in a country where “December is as pleasant as May.”  The weather was warm all through the year.  The ground was never frozen, for there was never any frost.  I never saw a snowflake in all the years I lived in the tropics.  The trees were trees of the hot climate, mostly palm, bamboo and acacia trees.  When Christmas drew near I thought the day would be a very dreary day, and wholly unChristmaslike because there would be no snow, and we would be without our accustomed tree.

A few days before our first Christmas in the tropics a friend said to me, “I am sending a tree down from the mountains for your children.”  In due time the tree arrived.  You can imagine the joy of our entire household when they looked upon a genuine, evergreen, Christmas tree.  We set it up in our big “sala,” that is our living room, and there it remained for many days, the delight of our eyes.

The tree of the Christmas season has some specifically Christmas messages.  First, it is evergreen.  That reminds us of the eternal Saviour, “the same yesterday, to-day and forever.”  At the very tiptop of the tree we place a star.  There it shines, high above all else, reminding us of the higher, holier life to which we are summoned.  The star beckons us to loftier aspirations.  Christ came down from heaven.  He became one of us, sharing our human life.  But he is ever above us as well as with us, luring us on to the life of God.  The Christmas tree is ablaze with lights.  Jesus brought light into the world.  How dark the world would be without him!  About the base of the tree, and suspended from the branches are many gifts.  They are tokens of the love and esteem we hold for each other, and remind us of God’s great gift of love, Christ himself.