The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1882-12-19 00:00:00

Puget Coutthi &pm.

DOWIIIIISTIN, DECEIBER 19th. DM.

There is Christmas in the air. We don't
specially mean that the "old man" comes this
year in appropriate robes of snow, bringing with
him frosty breezes and rainy mist. But that
there are certain anticipatory influences in
the moral atmosphere, which seem to bespeak
the Christmas-tide sermon or alms-giving, the
equally inevitable Christmas-tide "leader" on
benevolenc,, and the more direct and specific
appeals of individual expectanta. If St. Pau',
when he wrote the text, "Servants obey your
master in all things," had added "during the
eight or ten days preceding Christmas,"
servants would have tmplicity adopted his
doctrine. It is marvellous how cobwebs dis-
appear just now ; how long-standing nuisances
are abated; how promptly bells are answered;
how °sally early rising is accomplished; how
noiselessly household operations are performed.
Let us ascribe all these amenities to the genial
influence of the season, to the exhilarating
prospect of the most popular of holidays. Let
us regard the Box with which that holiday is
associated, as fortuitously coincident with goad
temper and ready service, and not in any
manner as to the motive thereto. A word, by
the way, to the curious concerning this said
'Box.' Like everything else c3nnected with
Yuletide customs, it haa a history. The word
was originally applied not to the gift, but to that
which contained it. Servants and dependents
had each a box with a slit in one indo of it for
coin to be dropped through, like a modern child's
money-box. Money placed in the box was
devoted—or was supposed to be devoted—to
paying for muses for the souls of departed
relations or friends of the donor. There was
real charity in this, in intention at any rate,
when it was believed that in default of such
masses dear ones were enduring the torments
of purgatoty. In these days the Christmas Box
is understood to be expended in some little
seasonable festivity and luxury. For the most
put it is quite ungrudgingly given, and grate.
hilly received.
But rich men or, to speak more truly, men
moderately well-off, ought not to forget living
sufferers when they have ceased to make them.
Delves uneasy about dead sufferers. Moreover,
there are boxes with slita in which gifts of the
ancient Christmas kind may be anonymously
placed, and these gifts will certainly attain
their object. They at least will not go to enrich
ecclesiastical corporations, but to help the sick
in hospitals, to feed the hungry, and to warm
the shivering. It is a healthy, and, thank God,
it is not a rare, Christmas ambition to make as
many people happy as possible. We see it beam.
ing in the kindly face of many a busy mer-
chant and many a hard-worked professional.
Theologians wrangle over the merit of good
works; but certainly the happiness and satis-
faction of a proper old.fashioned Christmas-tide
is not complete without the consciousness of
active charity. But stay! We are anticipating
the parson—taking the words out of his mouth,
and at this season we wouldn't for the world take
anything out of anybody's mouth. So let us at
once greet our readers, with most hearty wishes
for
A RIGHT MERRY CHRISTY tS.