New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-12-24
OHRIsTMAs IN VARIOUS Aspects.

1t is the destiey of Commemorative day.
to change their character with the course
of time ;eand perhaps no day has suffered
greater mutations from this cause thar
Christmas. In the olden time when thu
world was younger and less busy than now
this was the greatest of the many festivals
with which mother church stimu
lated the piety and gratifed the taste fol
show and pleasure of her obedient child
rem !; the holiday most eagerly antici
pated and most thoroughly enjoyed Of
them all. 1t was, moreover, as it
is in measure still, a day sacred
to home delights and Preside fes-
tivities. In "Merrie England" even in
feudal times, it was regarded as sort OF
sacred saturnalia wherein old and young,
lord and serf, recognized practically their
common relation as followers Of Christ,
and rejoiced, in ephemeral equality,
over the birth Of him "who
brought life and immortality to
light" But alas in these prosaic
times, Christmas is to most of US only a
legal holiday whereon the banks are closed,
toys are distributed and turkeys are eaten,
! (by those who can afford the luxury, and it
requires strong effort of retrospective
imagination to illumine the faded festival
with even q faint reflection of its former
brightness. To childhood only is it still
the blissfully enhancing day that stands
out from every other, unequaled in happi-
ness and joy. The Christmas of childhood,
sacred to Santa Claus, that bountiful deity
of early youth, whose coming is only known
by its delightful effects-what child sleeps
heartily the night before, or does not
bound eagerly from bed on that bright
morning, full of hope and expectation ?
If such there be, the stolid creature has cut
himself off from pleasure that can be
known but once. Too soon, alas the
knowledge comes that there is no Santa
Claus, but that papa and mamma bought
the toys last week, anu have kept them
hidden ever since. That melancholy wis
dom is the first taste of the forbidden fruit
robbing life of its earliest illusion, and
helping to turn Paradise into a market
place. r.u .
Yet even after that, there comes another
light from Heaven upon the Christmas
day. 1t is the ray of faith beaming from
the inspired page of the Evangelist. By
its soft glow we see, as in beautiful
vision, the favored shepherds tending their
focks by night under the starlit curtain of
that Syrian sky; we hear with them the
joyous chant of the angels proclaiming |
" glory to God in the highest and on earth
peace and good will to men," Surrounded
by that heavenly radiance, we follow the
inspired seekers until they come to the
place where the young child was; and,
falling down with them, we worship the
lnearnate deity. To our ecstatic vision
the humble asylum of the holy family is
filled with celestial light radiating from
the brows Of the blessed mother and the |
divine babe. The noisome stable ia an |
outer court of Heaven; the swaddling |
clothes in which the child is wrapped shine |
like the skies of morning; the very
straw pressed by its adorable form
glistens like FURNISHED gold. Everything
iestifes to the overpowering influence of
he divine presence. Even the senseless
Drutes feel it, and bend their stubborn
knees in worship. With mingled emotions
If tenderness and awe, we long to clasp
he Childhood in our arms, but venture
'nly to kiss the robe that covers him. But
Igain alas we pass on to other expert
'nces, and the Christmas of st. Luke, like
hat of Santa Claus, is left behind. We
AVE assembled from the rosy valley Of
childish trust TO the mountain.top of &C.
tatic faith, only to turn again on the other
ide, and descend toward the dreary desert
# naturalism. There we come upon the
eaden Christmas of Renan, to find again
he same family, but all the glory gone.
70 star, no heavenly music, no PROSTATE
Vorshipers, no halo around mother or
hid. Even the locality is changed. Only
n ordinary Jewish woman of the lower
lass, with a common black-eyed babe,
trapped in rags, and liable to all the
lumiliating details Incident to baby life.
We turn from the dreary, disorderly and
quallid scene without one thought of
Is significance, or one hope from its
romise.
And must it be indeed SO? Is there no
topping place between the misty noun
ain heights of all-exaggerating faith and the
rid, unwatered plain of safeguarding
kepticism no table-land of truth where
be sunlight Of reverential reason shows
be Christmas scene in its real colors, its
lst proportions, its intrinsic beauty? If
UGH there be, oh, let us find that favored
pot, and there erect our altar, exclaiming.
a accents ofheartfelt gratitude, sit is good
Dr. us to be herer'
/
THE FRUITs OP PEAnR.