The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1863-12-22 00:00:00

Our 4Sbristmas Solumn.

A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OUR READEM

We have once more reached that period of the year
at which all psople, bearing the name of Christian are
supposed to be made impressionable to the kindlier and
better influence, which operate upon the human mind,
and which elevate the human character to the highest
rank to which it can possibly attain in the prment state
of egistenos. There are people, we know, who tell us
that Christmas-day is not what it need to be; butt we
are of therm who believe that the only change in it, as •
festival, is for the better. We have long ago diecion-
tinned the picturesque orgies of bluff King Res
time. The joyous revels of that period are
gone, or changed with new modes of life
and new manners To haul in the male log with '
masques and music, and topple the huge toe of oak into
the sparkling embers, was all very well fur rush fl.ora
and castle halls, but would play the very mischief with
l'aterfamilies's new Turkey carpet and register stove.
It must have been a gallant eight, doubtless, in many •
baronial ball at yule-tide to see the light, dancing out
from every diamond window upon the snow; and within
doon to pass the time under the jolly governance of
the Lord of Misrule, with the "old October" flowing,
the wassail bowl at its rounds, and all the happy, albeit
rough and noisy, fun of olden England. Bat thia
picture, pretty as fancy paint, it, and as artiste depict
it, is so far off that we forget its sombre colours. For
one Christmas kept so joyously then, a thousand are
celebrated now; since Time, which makes the ruin
beautiful, slowly wears it down, and all these brilliant
colours really hung upon Feudalism, • thing that is
passed away. Better then though we have
lost these old observances when all the
country-aide gathered to the great man's board
—better that Christmas should have become,
as it has become, tha feast of the family. The solemn
memories that cluster about it, the deep spell that eon-
*rendes at to all Christ...lido* have blended now into
the religion of the hearth. Above all days in the year
it is now regarded as that on which the scattered man,
ben of the bunahold should meet about the old
mahogany tree." $OO.l eirsent in the busy world find
their way again on that 41:y, if possible, to the old
home; daughters bring lack their little one+ to the
loving knees where they themselves ono, prattled ; the
all stories are told, the old jokes laughed at ; and orbs.
the smallest of the happy party sticks the holly twit to
the pudding, it is a service, • right, a eelebrap.,,
he as solemn in it, way a. that of the mo*.olng cb:rneoh.,
Bare we lad, then, by subetitutic, these eiyear_
liturgies of home for the ynle-los. ,„„,a the mergi.;
dancers? sorely 001, when inst.. _ „___,
and there in the land, every eetl:, -
is n •
shthe
altar of the day. Nor let
att cynic sneer if beef arid
plum-pudding are the abromantie burnt-offerings of
that altar. There ars-
, tem* things on earth than them.
ut,idied. Englishman will lean back in his
choir and ""'" se: and when he reflects that all over
the solid 11.•
.aatta ere partaking the same substantial
seam of • fine •nity, in heart and creed, of a
gr","" *mum, bound together by that family love, whir*,
!n. Aged, in patriotism, may reward a clear conscience
sad a good digestion. At least, we do not envy the
rmil conscience. and *Mainly not the bad digestion,
-which can isles this simple moral of Christmrur-day,
in the light that family hearth by which we all
now celebrate it. Careless of climate or locality, the
Englishman will eat on Friday the dinner which is pm-
scribed to his race. On shore, at sea, in India, where
• burning sun and dark.skinned servants scattering
flowers over their masters, in graceful observance of the
day, make Christina. doubtful ; in A eatmlie, -here use
hottest weather of midsummer and tr..pieal foliage con-
tradict the calendar—he will eat it. Even no a house-
hold fete, it is the chief day of the year which can SO
areeatrain se all.

But we have not forgotten that or memorise sad
more sekstin thoughts hallow this festival Associations
Which het, and will lvdt, however manners change,
make Okristmea the 'ireat feast of all Christian commu-
nities. Yet her. mond of the eel.bration is wider,
but the same. II Is to the human family, instead of
the fecnklY ", to thence of men instead of the individual
liwaseh'..ol, that the sacred science of Bethlehem tionse-
an'o the time. That star which glittered, those angels
who sang, over the Pastern matures, proclaiming the
T'-uth, but dimly perceived before, that
all tool have a common interest and a common
hope. This is the heart and germ of Christianity,
the " glad tidings of great hoe," which two thousand
years have as yet but partially unfolded to us. But
thus aid is nevertheless the era which has given us the
Christmaa, and with it this golden message. Mast
another such period run its course before the brother.
bond of all men—their common nature, their identical
welfare, their universal kindred, their one and gracious
Father and God--become heartfelt faiths, and not
epoken phrases Far or near, it is still that " star in
the East" to all hopeful eyes, which animates them in
their tedious journey to the cradle of the truth ;
faint or loud, it is still that song of the
heavenly ehorns which cheers the listening ear, and
revives the sad spirits of those who love their kind
and live for them. The smoke-wreathe of war may
dead the little star; the noise of selfish and foolish
passions may drown the angels' anthem ; but to that
token and towards that sound all true men still press
forward. Christmas, which repeats the blamed promise
of "pence on earth, good will to all men," renews
the hope of its eventual fulfilment. At such a
moment envy, hatred, malice, and all un-
chsritablenees are for a time abashed. Angry
religions or political debate finds, or should
find, no audience. The unity of mankind, and not their
differences, is the lemon taught us by the simple but
sublime picture—where kings and shepherds—trim ones
from the East and foolish ones from the Wt—men of
ranks, names, and nations, bend together in silent
worship Woes the ehid Christ, the Teacher of the true:
the Divine Lord who declared that "God is love," and
told the parable at the Namarltaa. With these remarks
we conclude. Wlteetely hoping that in the houses of all
our readers of sr. ranks, a happy Christmas will be spent.