New-York tribune., 1873-12-25
THEN INU NOW,

A certain class of Gladgrinds among us
grumble good deal nowadays at the hack
neyed monOtony of our regularly recurring
holidays, to-day among the rest Sermons IN
pulpit OF newspaper they complain, ring the
same changes on the same notes. year after
year They confess themselves grown tired OF
the old simple story of the shepherds and the
wise men, of Kriss Kringle, of turkeys andplum-
puddngs, and trees hung with toys; they won
der how rational people can devote so much time
and thought to these old, worn symbols while
science is daily opening up unknown worlds
of speculation and certainty before them Yet,
in spite of their grumbling, Christmas ana
Easter even among us practical Americans
are growing each year more fixed in popular
observance. What went before the Pliocene
era. or whether we were eliminated ages ago
out of an ape are matters on which we whet
our intellects in spare halfhOurs; but when
we look into the cradle of our first born, Oc
bend over our dead, they concern us but
little; il il that story of the wOndrOu5
birth i'm the manger, of the death upon
the cross, that is present with us and
makes life rapture of triumph, and the
closed eyes and unanswering lips possible for
and hope. No logic will touch the matter
The tree gltterng by a. thousand hearths this
morning. the carol reaching the street from
open churchdOOr even the friendly Christ-
mas greeting of the man with whom we buy
and SELL have come through old childish ass0-
citation to mean eternal truths to us, and touch
depths in our nature which know nothing of
the facts or studies of our middle age 1t Is
as when a man, tired of the narrow valley IN
which he was born, travels all over
the world: tropical forestS and ice-tiOes re-
main in his mind as beautiful instructive
paintings but it is the old apple tree by the
wel-curb that, all his life long, means home
and home love to him, and the little quarry
which he used to climb that brings back the
lusty strength and hot ambition Of his youth
and that bit of blue distance beyond the
gorge where his native village lies that always
seems to him the straight and nearest way to
heaven. 1t is to a wise and deep purpose,
whether we intend il or not. that we put into
our children's lives this simple Christmas al
phabet of good cheer and brotherly love with
which we, grown Older, spell out hope for this
muddled world and certainty of help in the
long lives in others yet to come
We have grown older while we have not
ceased to find immortal meanings in the his
tory of the poor jewish girl with the won
drous Infant on her knee, sitting among the
cattle in the stable, while miraculous stars
were set in the sky to guide kings through
the desert to her, and the angels were sent to
tell first to herdsmen "a needy as she the glad
tidings of help for all peoples; yet through
| that very meaning, we do not like the chill
dren to look upon the beautiful story as far
off miracle fading into unreality beyond the
| centuries that lie between us and that manger
| in Bethlehem. 1t is miracle which God re-
| peats for us from day to day. The world, full of
| brutality and ignorance and greed, goes cropping
! after false gods here and there, crying out
| for leader with some new message for hu-
manity, in 1873, as on that first Christmas
night. Men decide questions of right by brute
| force rulers are ruled in their turn by fear
of the rabble and expediency in the days Of
Victoria and Grant as of Pontius PLATE; not
| one but every star set in the gray distance
night by night over this city, tells US of
regions of measureess calm; of Power q
personal Love and Honor and Right alive
here in the turmoil of work-day life, and at
work in us, and through it all, trade and mar
riage, cheating and dOgmatiSm, in the stock
market and quiet homes, striving to compel
iustice and brotherly love out of it all some
day to prevail, TO bring order and peace out
of this inextricable riddle of a world.
We do not think to-day OF this divine per-
sonal helper of ours as "A Babe sitting on His
Mothers knee in the stable in Bethlehem
| Ages ago, the stable and the cattle crumbed
away: the Virgin Mother is but dust. But in
every new unfolding by science of the marvel
Gus plan of the world He created, we find the
wise men paying homage again to Him: in
every step forward made by humanity toward
civilization or mutual justice or mutual kindly
help, we hear again the message OF the angels
to the beggarly Jewish shepherds. telling that
this great Elder Brother OF us all lived to
make us one. To-day, in every healthy
cheerful thought that comes to us, every I'M
pulse TO live a nober, wider life, IN the inno-
| eeDce Of each ahi,d's face. III the love that "