Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-12-25
Gifts without Money.

Gifts Without Money.
What to do about Christmas? How
many good people (Of both man and wO-
mankind) will go about the streets du-
ring the next three days, their heads ach-
ing with that yearly problem. Their
friends are so many and their pocket
books so lean. The very rich and the
very poor have less trouble about the
matter. The labOrer's wife, anXiouSly
chooses a wooden monkey in cellar
near the ferries for the baby, knows the
baby will be satisfied; it is born into the
class, blessed at least in that it expects
nothing. The millionaire's wife, driving
from bric-a-brac shop to jewellers
carries long list of eXpectant friends,
and carelessly ticks them off with costly
baubles. But it is the middle class, the
people with small incomes, cultivated
tastes and warm affections, who usually
find Christmas and its requirements as
much of pain as pleasure. They
think that on this one day of the year
poverty should cease to grind. Why
should not the poor clerk, peering wist-
fully in the shop window, be able TO buy
his boy the books he wants so much
The poor clerks wife scans his shabby
coat and pinchbeck watch. She meas
ures his worth with that of meaner
more lucky men. She would hang his
lean limbs with broadcloth and gold, like
theirs, if she could. Why must he LaZ-
arus in rags to-day while Dives in pur.
pie holds high holiday? On this of all
days of the year, the birthday of Christ
who made all men equal? Even sober
miserly Deborah Franklin bought heI
husband china bowl and silver spoon
because surely he was worthy, if any
"man living was, to eat no more on tin
1t is beggarly soul which is never
seized on Christmas time with rash
frenzy of giving, and it is one of the
hardest riddles of the years poverty
why money should stand in the way
when our true love would show itself
through some little token.
The only answer to the riddle is that
perhaps we make too much of the mere
giving of tokens on Christmas. If We
have the money, let US spend it. 1t /:
worth while to scrimp and save a month
or two later, to make this one crewnine
day of the year happier for a child or {
| IL
us do without it, and keep Christina:
still. Our friend is not less our friend
because we do not give him a book or
bit of old Satsuma. Ten to one We have
never said single word to him in oul
lives which would hint our hearty ap
probation for him, which alone make:
book or crOckery of value. We Ameri
cans are lavish of money, but almost a:
niggardly as our English cousins in oul
words or signs of affection. Old Andrew
Jackson's eleventh commandment" tt
mind your own business" is practiceC
| by most well-bred Americans more rig
orOusly than all the others. When ;
man in this country once sets about hi,
life's work of making living he has NJ
time to be picking up friends or gOins
about into the highways and byways t.
show sympathy with lonely or tempted
souls. 1t is uncivil, meddling, accord
ing to his code. There may be too mucl
in any mans life of this reticence an(
dread of intrusion into the lives of 9th
ers, and there can be no better time thi:
for each of us to consider whether there
has not been too much of it in ours.
A few months ago clergyman in {
parish in Canada died, as our reader:
will recollect, of starvation; he went il
and out among his parishiOners to tn,
last, but owing to this let-alone policy
of good-breeding nobody asked the cause
of his pallor and sunken jaws until il
was too late. There are other kinds OF
starvation than those of the body, hints
of which we see about US every day, anC
they are the kind which well-bred anC
good Christian people stand aloof from
and let alone. How many a young MAJ
is there to-day in this and every great
city, who has come up from some pool
home followed by the prayers of father
and mother; who is fighting day by day
temptations which will ruin him, body
and soul, if he yields, and from which
proper companionship will save him
He is utterly friendless and alone. He
goes to church, and the crowd of well.
meaning worshippers brush past him
without word. He goes to his work
and his employer puts him aside at night
as he does his ledger, as a tool, not a hu.
man being. Would not word of SYM
pathy, a cordial invitation, a little wo-
manly intereSt-if our reader is wo-
man-be of more value here than any
gift which money could buy? In. Our
circle of acquaintances, in our own
households, is there no tired woman, nc
man with whom the world has dealt
hardly, to whom we have often felt i'm
PEELED to hold out our hands with
hearty goodwill, but have not done it
The boy yOnder, rough, disorderly, chat
tering of baseball, guns, the theater-his
mind is not all full of guns and base
ball there are beneath his immature
dreams, hopes, passions. What dees his
father know of themp What has he
tried to know? How many words of
real recognition during this year has he
spoken to the lad to win his confidence
to get his hand upon the rudder of his
life? There is the mother at the head
of the table. All the children know
what she has done for them; they know
that nobody can take her place to them
in all their lives. But do they say so?
Let us try the value of another and
better giving than money this Christmas
If there is word of cheerfulness or Ell
couragement, which, if we were dead
we would wish we had spoken, let us
speak it now. If there is one human
soul whom we can help in his fight
against his worse self, let us help him on
this Christmas time in the name of the
Brother of lis all.--N. Y. Tribune.