Middletown transcript., 1883-12-21
THE HOLIDAY SEASON.


The futtering anxiety of wives ant
mothers, the loving concelments, the
sweet perplexities, the affectionatt
councils of the day and tender reveries
of the night-these constitute tn charm
and delight Of the ever blessed Christ
mas time. This awakened thought
fulness for others, this ministration to
the happiness of others, has a divine
potency to quicken, cheer and eXhiler-
ate. The most thorough-going man of
business recognizes in it a subtle pleas
ure which he hardly knows how to
analyZe it has a strange but delicate
and delicious flavor, like the rarest vim
tage or some tender memory of days
long gone. Wordsworth complains
that
Getting and spending, we lay waste our
powers"
When we consider the great material
achievements that have been made
under the whip and spur of a desire for
self-aggrandizement, we cannot entirely
join in the poets lament, but certainly
it is that the glory of this holiday time
is that all classes strive to escape from
the deadly blight and canker of selfish
ness. How it is that the poor, the old,
the feeble and the sick are specially re-
membered, and the young hold raptur-
Gus carnival, without care of the
future. What world of loving and
lOyable associations are blended with
this happy season. 1t gives color to
familiar things. 1t invests the homely
with the hues of undying beauty. Bas-
kets and paper boxes and wheelbarrows
andbureau drawers acquire mystical i'm
portance and are invested with ambas-
sadorial qualities. Everywhere in
town, village and hamlet, and in remote
farm houses, there is a subdued din of
solicitous provision and provision for
one heart season in the circling year.
How utterly the season has identified
itself with pictures and scenes that
bring pleasure and solace. Happy fire.
sides, gift books, trinkets, the decorated
tree, the clamore of joyous children, the
of the table, song and rip
Dling chat and good cheer, a veritable, |
hearty, and friendly time of real fellow
ship, with anundercurrent of pathos, for
here are eyes that survey these glad
ome rites with thoughts that Lie
90 deep for tears, y thoughts of far
way holiday times, far away faces that
we're once so loving, far away voices
hat once held the heart in deathless
ustody. What can the coldly eloquent
reachers of the gospel of materialism
fer at Christmas time to those who
ill not make their loved and lost ones
cad forever?
Yes, it is the season to have reunions
those connected by ties of blood or I
nifty; The season to refresh ones g
If with the poets, the story writer's f
is the season of Dickens, Farjeon and
ans Andersen it is the season to d
ing forth the old love letters and the P
ded daguerreotypes it is the season
rejoice with the girls and boys in o
ieir hilarities, and, above all, the
ason to recall, and it may be, realize t,
lat time when
Nor war or battles sound
w as heard the world around
le idle spear and shield were high up hung; a
The hooked chariot stood, II
Unstain'd with hostile blood,
lie trumpet spake not to the armed throng r,
And kings sat still with awful eye -
} if they surely knew their sovereign Lord
was by.
Wrangle as men may about the 81
vine origin and essence of Christ,
is mission and His work were worthy p
God. 1t is fit and noble thing to j..
apart to his honor time in which Ii
en- and women shall interchange
ndly offices and hold happy and un-
fish communion. Let the iconoclasts
rike where they will, they cannot ! !,
lperil Christmas. Childhood will =
row its fair young arms about the q
~ and bid radiant defiance to its foes. u
And so we bid one and all happy, ID
lppy holiday.-C Cincinnati Saturday :
ight Il
Kissing among men is nowhere con- it
led to the aXnressinn of disnlaasnre o