The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-12-22 00:00:00

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4e -,toarbri4e 055et7trev
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22nd, 1883.

"A MERRY CHRISTMAS ! "

"Christmas comes but once a year," says the

I first line of the old disticti which will- be in
- thousands of hearts and upon thousands of lips
-s within the next few days. the older among us
-will be tempted to thaik that the statement must
be erroneous, for the months have g ided by so
rapidly that it is difficult to rea ise that twelve
have passed over our beads since last a Christ-
mastide gave us good chte,r. The younger way
be inc ined to doubt the correctness of the asser-
tion from the very opposite rietSoll to that which
would obtain among their elders ; to them Tune
is a laggard, and the inters, Al between one
Christmas awl another is unduly long. But
however from these two standpoints the matter
may be looked at, the fact is undeniable that
"Christmas comes but once a year;" and with-
in a very few hours after these lines have been
read the "festive season" will be at its height.
It is as easy to be cynical as it is to be unduly
sentimental concerning Christmas in its develop-
ment, not so much as a religious as a social in-
stitution. But it is possible to steer safely be
tween the extremes, though, it must be confessed,
if either of them is to be touched, the sum of
human happiness is much more likely to be in-
creased by touching the latter than the former.
Fory or fifty years ago it almost seemed as if
with the majority of the English people Christ-
mas observances were likely to die into
desuetude. The mummeries of the Middle
Ages had long before been swept into the lioabo
of forgetfulness, and nothing had arisen to take
their place. Christmas was still remembered in
its social aspects and by many was faithfully
observed, but on the whole a torpor may be said
to have settled down upon it; had that torpor not
been removed we should not now be called upon
to sing the glories of whir is a flourishing, but
what would probably have been a dying institu-
tion, Christmas has been saved from the fate
which threatened it, not by the exertions of any
one man and ot thoughts widely differing ; yet it
only to just to remember that it is to Dickens,
coupled with the revival half a century since of
a love for inediasvalisol, that the renewal of
popular interest is and popular sympathy with
Christmas is mainly due. Here then we have
the fact that, perhaps at no period of our history,
has Chris mas been more loyally, more joyously
observed than it is at this present. And when
we come to sum up the results of this observ-
ance, to cent uplate the various forms which it
takes, and to consider the effects of the whole
upon the fer.,ily life of England, what is the
rcsult of our thought? We have been told often
and teld truly that the moral prosperity of this
country rests upon one social foundation in
e.-,-oucial, and that is the family. Whatsoever
preserves that foundation intact, whatsoever
tends to strengthen that foundation in marked
degree., is therefore, something to be welcomed
and approved by everyone who wishes well to
England. And it can scarcely be denied that
Christmas comes well within the category here
given. It is essentially a season at which
families are united as the exigencies of time and
space prevent their being united at other periods
of the year. The facility of communication,
which is one of the most marked features of the
present age, enables 'hose who, throughout the
twelve months, have been severed by great
distances from their friends and relations, to
join them for a day or two at Christmas. Old ,
bonds are tightened, new ones are formed
enmities which have soiouldered, and which
have more than once threatened to break forth
into flames, are quenched for ever by the spirit
of good-fellowship which contact at Christmas
and contact with Christmas, seems always
to evolve ; and opportunities are given
for the indulgence in much harmless mirth
which the stern necessities of life prevent
at other times of the year. And so, turning
aside from those who would have us take a
gloomy or a cynical view of that which makes
millions so happy, let us wish to one and to all
with a good heart, " A Merry Christmas." It
does not need that the adjective should be con-
strued in a riotous sense ; it does not need that
it should be thought to betoken only a round of
feasting and of mere physical enjoyment ; in the
phrase are summed up the result of experience
of centuries that Christwastide is eFs ntiaily a
period for joy, and that the more unselfish the
more truly lasting it is likely to be. And it is
in the hope that every reader of these lines may
participate in the pleasure which the season
should bring to every man, to every woman, and
to every child that we again utter, and utter from
our heart, the sentiment, "A MERRY CHRIST.
DIAS TO Yea ALL."