The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1884-12-26
THE MERRY CHRISTMAS DAY.
A FEW SERIOUS THOUGHTS THAT IT WILL DO Us
NO HARM TO READ.

Amid all the festivals which shine in the cal
endar Of mans devotion there is none so "a
dant with holy joy and gladness as the Feast
of the Nativity. Christmas that "comes but
once year" has come to us. The time-hon-
ored holiday, when Age, smiling on the infant
at its knee, renews in memory its own youth,
revels in the joy which grasps the present and
believes in the future, and when Middle Age
forgets the burden and heat of the day in its
sympathy with the repose of the one and the
glad energy of the other.
How full of associations is the recurrence of
this great Christian holiday. How many on
this continent will have their tenderest sensi-
bilities aroused in memory of those away
Christmas times, in far-away lands, when
there came on the eve of the Nativity those
musical 'waits," waking you out of the dreams
of heaven with the notes Of strayed angels and
on the day of Christmas ushering you into
church which was bowery, like the spring with
its ample vegetation, and warm, like the sum-
mer with the radiancy of great joy. There,
amid boughs, which recalled the most poetical
of the Jewish charlottesville Feast of the
Tabernacles-was commemorated the taberna-
cling In flesh Of Him whose advent was to the
dreary life of the world what spring is to the
year. And the public devotions of the holy
day over, with winter and with Christmas
came, in the circle of home, the generous fare
of the Christmas season, the warm interchange
of kindly feeling and family lovingness.
Many will indulge in the luxury of grief; the
looking back with sad memories to the old
Christmas times in the old lands. But here
there are compensations in the present. New
families have grown up and new circles ex-
tended and new homes with all the associa-
tions of the old formed. Houses are decked
with evergreens, fires are blazing bravely,
merry groups are meeting, and high up in the
steeples bells will wag and waver and shout
with mighty voice welcome to the festival.
Christmas has come 1t is bleak December
without, but within there is the warmth of at
mosphere, as well as the warmth of heart. 1t
is pleasant time indeed for those with whom
the world has dealt kindly. Light, warmth,
laughter, loved companions of old times; and
wine and wassail, are with them at the feast.
If they are not happy and comfortable it is not
anybody's fault but their own. For them
Christmas is pleasant time not easily or will
ingy forgotten. They watch for it all the
year, and when it comes they give it good
grip for old acquaintance sake.
But, alas there is reverse to the medal
To-day in this land of Charities how many
thousands are there to whom the advent of
this festival is but an intensifcation of misery.
In cold and cheerless garrets, in foul and fetid
tenement novels, with scant clothing and still
scanter food, there are squalid wretches COVER
ing over some half-heated stove or expiring
ember, thinking bitterly of the days when
they too welcomed Christmas and participated
in its enjoyments; days when they entered
with young and happy hearts into the spirit of
the munifcence of Santa Claus, and waited to
welcome or came to be welcomed at the profuse
and hospitable board. 1t is here we have the
illustration of the poets Sorrows Crown of
Sorrows" for if contrast heightens lustre
does it not also make the dark places more dark;
and if there be one misery more unendura-
BILE than another, is it not the recognition that
the bright world has no longer q brightness;
that the season of festivity brings no joy; that
while friends meet friends in gladness Of soul
there is no kindly hand to grasp, and that in
the general enjoyment there is but the one dull
round of loneliness and pain?
What more practical performance of the
great doctrines left us by Hin whose nativity
we celebrate than the alienation of human
suffering? What gift more acceptable to the
Saviour than that out of the abundance with
which we are blessed, we shall give even lit
tie to make the day of His festival day of
festivity to his poor also-and "the poor we
have always with us?' Christmas time is in
deed the time for generosity. 1t is pre-emi-
nently the holiday Of the year. a time of char
ity, time of the meeting of absent friends, of
the making up of old quarrels, the cementing
of old friendships, the opening of closed
hearts and closed purses, the shining of bright
eyes, the making of love and the creating of
happiness time but for the annual recur-
renee of which the lives Of many would be an
interminable journey across desert with no
oasis in the path, no Canaan but beyond the
grave.
We wish to all happy and merry Christ