The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-12-26

tomorrow.
Christmas has come, but is not vet cone This
year. it fingers with a while longer than usual.
Let us be, thankful for it. The separation of the
religious phase of the festival from its merely
social and secular aspect has doubtless been with
out detriment TO either. The solemn services
wherewith men celebrated yesterday the Great
Event which Christmas is intended to comment
crate, were none the less earnest because there
mingled with them fewer of the distracting thoughts
and associations which, at such season, are wont
to invade the souls even of the most devoutly in
clined. We have the better right to be merry
To-day, if we have not forgotten to be thankful
yesterday. The transition from the house of
prayer to the house of feasting, from the sacred
Offices OF thanksgiving and praise to the festive
rites OF the wine-cup and the punch-bowl, seems
less sudden when the slumbers of a night have
interviewed between the two. Let us then continue
to keep Christmas to-day, and, Tomorrow when
we return TO the cares of business and the avoca-
tions of our every-day-life, let us, in spirit at
least, keep Christmas still. Never in the history
of the country, has there been a time, when there
benevolence and gratitude, and spirit of friend
ship and good will Such a spirit it is the blessed
province of Christmas to cherish and evoke To-
day, when there is so much strife and dissenson
in our national councils-so many jealouses
and heart-burnings, and so little trust and
confidence, among the people at large,
it would be real blessing--one true
Christmas in the land-a Christmas which
should be kept in mems hearts and homes, as well
as in their shops and churches. The great family
OF States would be in less danger of disruption,
IT IN each little circle around each mans reside
the feast of Christmas were rightly kept 1t is a
season consecrated to the family-to drawing clo-
ser and knitting together the bonds of friendship
and the ties of natural affection. 1t is attended
by the interchange of gifts, good wishes and
Christmas situations the sacred observances of
hospitality, and the tender Offices of charity Its
effect is to make men, for the time at least, more
kindly disposed toward one another-more toler-
ant of each others faults-more indulgent towards
each others weaknesses-less prone to be enemies
and better inclined to be friends. Men live bet
ter ut Christmas than at any other season
Christmas cheer is always the best that the mar
ket and the purse can afford. They drive fewer
hard bargains then than at other times, for they
buy not TO profit but TO give away. The spirit of
selfshness for Il time is checked, and a spirit of
humanity is diluSed abroad in its stead. While,
then, the Odor and the verdure Of the ever
greens still linger in our dwellings and our
churches-while Christmas wreaths and Christmas
holly yet deck the walls where fair hands
have placed them, or bind the sacred columns
round which pous ones have twlned Them let
us cherish and keep alive the genial influences of
the season. In the ages that are gone, and in
the countries from which our forefathers came.
Christmas was observed with many a curious rite
and quaint solemnity. The changed customs of
modern life, particularly in great cities, have
rendered many of these inappropriate and i'm
practicable. The diminished dimensions of our
ire-places, since the days of stoves and patent
CRATES, would make the ceremony of burning the
Gule'log one of difficult accomplishment, while
the increased license of our manners. and STRANGE
to say, our inferior system Of police, would rem
der the harmless performances of the Waits, and
the antic ones of the Mummers rather source of
tumult and disorder, than of merrment and en-
joyment The hideous DISCUSSES and indecent
orgies of the Fishing clubs would be no desirable
substitute for the reves Of the iovia Masouers of
the olden time! But though the form of observ-
ance has changed, the spirit of the festival re-
mains the same 1t teaches the same lessons. and
appeals to the same sentiments now as heretofore
Let us then keep it-those of us who can-as our
fathers kept it, with mirth and ioity. If wish
ing were of any avail we should wish TO see
every man in this city enabled so to keep it. But
that, we well know, cannot be. The INEQUALITIES
OF human life and condition will stand out all the
more prominently this day. because of the happiness
which will be in some mems houses, and which
will be denied to others. We speak not of those
occasional Affections which cast their transient
gloom over particular households, and exclude
them, at this time, from participation in the
common joy. Sickness and sorrow belong to no
season, and Christmas brings no exemption from
these ordinary circumstances of life We refer
rather to the presence of that misery and want,
the papgs OF which are felt more keenly now than
at any other time. The very plenty under which
one mans table groans, serves to make more con-
splcuous the destituton of another's and the gifts
that gladden. the hearts of many happy children in
ten thousand comfortable homes, present in colors
all the stronger and darker for the contrast, the
different lot of those who, nurtured in poverty
and rags, have no kind friends to remember them
at Christmas-no stockings for SANTA CLAUS to
fill with toys and sweetmeats, no Christmas bush
upon the wall Or Christmas turkey at the fire Let
not the claim of these to sympathy and relief pass
unheeded this day, but let our charity to the poor,
and spirit Of peace and goodwill towards all
rn,ti, 4 -
test the fact that Christmas has been with us, and
that we have known how worthily to honor it:
coming, and profit by its teachings.