CHRIST ANDHISMISSION 389
are all led by The Star to the World-Savior, to Whom
eventually “every knee shall bow,” and Whom “every
tongue shall confess”; Who shall unite all the scattered
nations under the Banner of Peace and Goodwill; Who shall
cause men to “beat their words into plowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks.”
The Star of Bethlehem is said to have appeared at the
time of the birth of Jesus, and to have guided the three wise
men to the Savior.
Much speculation has been indulged in as to the nature
of this Star. Most material scient ists have declared it a myth,
while others have said if it were anything more than a myth,
it might have been a “coincidence”—two dead Suns might
have collided and caused a conflagration. Every mystic,
however, knows the “Star”—yea, and the “Cross” also—not
only as symbols connected with the life of Jesus and Christ
Jesus, but in his own personal experience. Paul says: “Until
Christ be formed in you”; and the mystic, Angelus Silesius,
echoes:
Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born
And not within thyself, thy soul will be forlorn.
The Cross on Golgotha thou lookest to in vain
Unless within thyself it be set up again.
Richard Wagner shows the intuitional knowledge of the
artist when, to the question of Parsifal, “Who is The Grail?”
Gurnemanz answers:
That tell we not;
But if thou hast by Him been bidden,
From thee the truth will not stay hidden.... The land to Him no path leads through,
And search but severs from Him wider
When He Himself is not the Guider.