The Cecil Whig., 1885-12-26
fss'p. tllo''', scientific. 1 Historical.
An Original WING Feature.
WHY KEEP OHRSTMAS2
by Frederick ID. Huntington, ID. ID LID,
Bishop of Central New York.

by Frederick ID. Huntington, ID. ID LID,
Bishop of Central New York.
There is disclosure of national char
acter in the keeping of festivals. 1t is a
test of civilization. Not every enter
prlsing person, useful citizen, or respec-
table community, knows how to be
amused. And there is reason for this
which lies little way below the surface.
In their ordinary ork-day employments,
most men and women are subject to
certain constraint, amounting to a nee
cesslty. They live in a framework of
order or routine which has grown up
about them gradually by their consent,
so that large proportion of their acts
become involuntary. Habit supersedes
concine, time is used in particular way
as a matter of course, occupation is as
much a mechanism as virtue, and it is
about as unlikely that the person will
ever do anything very bad or odd, as
that harnessed horse will get out of
the traces. But when we pass from tie
region of regular labor to that of recre-
alton, this harness of custom drops off,
and we are liberated into sphere of free
election. School is over, play-day has
come, and the emancipated attention has
to decide what it will do. Then the will
comes uppermost, what is most within
US asserts itself, and character appears.
If you would find out something more
about your neighbor than his common
pursuit reveals ask how he spends his
leisure hours. Nations may be judged
by their holidays as well as by their
dress, industries or songs.
Some holidays have their purpose de-
termined by their origin. or by facts be-
longing to it. They are commemorations,
perhaps, of historical personages or
events. There is hardly more emphatic
or graceful way of putting honor upon a
hero, saint, or an idea. Instead of a
block of stone set up somewhere to be
seen now and then by part of the peo-
pie, or some Ovations, eulogies, music,
heard by few ears, the great, wide,
even stream of ordinary life is arrested,
the chain OF continuous drudgery is
broken, in every household there is an
imponderable monument, the day itself
is the orator; even sun and air speak, and
the change sings new song. In this
case good faith, common sense, and the
fitness of things require that at least
some sort of correspondence shall be
kept up between what is commemorated
and the manner of the commemoration,
between the character whose name the
day bears and the day.
What needs at present to be particu-
larly considered about Christmas is this
principale of relationship between the
Feast and him whose birth in humanity
it celebrates. To take an anniversary
instituted and set apart for very lofty
and sacred purpose and, whether sud-
denly or slowly, lower it to inferior pur-
poses is something more than misap-
| pllcation or an incongruty; it betrays,
on the part of those who accomplish such
degradation, low mind. Among Chris
tians there will be no dispute that the
special or distinctive object of Christ's
coming among men was spiritual. He
came bringing from Heaven the nature
and life of God to unite God with man
kind and so, quickening humanity, to
| II Of 4 o,l to1- -
into the fellowship of immortality in God.
Therefore it is logically and morally i'm
possible to separate our Lords Nativity
from the awful facts of his mediation,
ministry, miracles, passion, sacrifice, res
direction, ascension and eternal intarces
sion from the august doctrines of his
Divinity, humiliation, atonement, re-
demption, the deliverauce of our race, by
the Second Adam, from the bondage of
corruption in sin and perdtion, into the
holy and glorious liberty of sons of God.
Before this stupendous and unspeakable
purpose, this singular and supreme er-
rand, this mystery which was to recreate
mankind, transform the world, and revo
lutionize history, all other effects of his
advent are subordinate and remote.
Civilization, equal rights, republicanism,
popular education, domestic happiness,
manifold reforms, appear in the train of
the Kings advance, but he comes as the
king of spiritual kingdom, as the head
of spiritual society, as the Saviour of
the soul.
What light does this indisputable and
dogmatic affirmation of the Christian
creed throw on the keeping of Christ
mas? What imperative law does it lay
down? What duty does it demand?
Plainly enough whatever is remembered,
and thought Of, and kept in mind, and
spoken out, at Christmas-tide, Christ is
not to be forgotten. Whatever other
guests gather in any house, He for whom
no loom was found in the inn is not to
be shut out. Whatever other joys glad
den the social scene, gratitude for a spir-
itual salvation and the promise of ever
| lasting blessedness is not to be unmen-
tiohed, suppressed by shamefacedness,
drowned in unreigious mirth, or buried
| in disloyal silence. When all the secu-
lar and social benefits of the Gospel and
the Church have been put into our side
of the balances, vast as they are, they
are as the ''small dust" compared with
the infinite and everlasting benediction
of deiiveraIce from the power of in
ward darkness into the luminous King
dom of grace, forgiveness and righteous
ness. If among the three hundred and
sixty five days of the year of our Lord
there were, as there might well be,
second annual tribute to the Master of
all nations and all ages his gifts to our
present and earthly estate might form
the theme of it's thanksgiy ings and fix
the fashion and tone of the observance
We have but one. Surely, that belongs
to him not primarily as the head OF the
Kingdoms of this world, but as the Head
of the kingdom of heaven above them
and within them. Within our recollec-
tion a strong Puritan preacher in Boston
in a sermon which went into print be-
sought his congregation with pathetic
fervor to resist Christmas keeping as one
of the perilS of the time, threatening
orthodoxy and loosening morality. Why