The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-12-19
glisttllanp.
The Danger of OVERRIDING the Christ
mas Presents.

1t would be the pity of the world 10
destroy it, because it would be next to
impossible to make another holiday as
good as Christmas. Perhaps there is
no danger, but the American people
have developed an unexpected capacity
for destroying things; they can destroy
anything. They have even invented
phrase fOi drumming thing into the
ground. They have perfected the art of
making so much Of a thing as to kill it;
the can magnify a man or Il recreation
or an institution to death. Aud they do
it with such hearty goodwill and en-
joyment. Their motto is that you can
not have too much of a good thing.
They have almost made funerals un-
popular by overelaboration and display,
especially what are called public
funerals, in which an effort is made to
confer great distinction on the dead. So
far has il been carried often that there
has been reaction of popular senti-
ment, and people have wished the
man were alive. We prosecute every
thing so vigorously that we speedily
either wear it out or wear our
selves out on it, whether it is game, a
festival or holiday. We can use up
any sport or game ever invented quicker
than any other people. We can prac-
tlce anything-like vegetable diet, for
instauce-to an absurd conclusion with
more vim than any other nation. This
trait has its advantages; nowhere else
will delusion run 50 fast and so soon
run up tree-another of our happy
phrases. There is largeness and eX-
uberance about us which run even into
our ordinary phraseology. Taking into
account the present preparations for
Christmas, aud the time it takes to re-
cover from it, we are beginning-are
we MOTTO consider it one of the most
serious events Of modern life. II is
impossible to conceive of any holiday
that could take its place, nor, indeed,
would it seem that human wit could
invent another so adapted to humanity.
The obvious intention of il is to bring
together, for season at least, all men
in the exercise of common charity
and feeling of goodwill, the poor and
the rich, the successful and the I'M
fortunate, that all the world may feel
that in the time called the Truce of
God the thing common to all men is
the best thing in life. How will it
suit this intention, then, if in our
way of exaggerated ostentation of
charity the distinction between rich
and poor is made TO appear more
marked than on ordinary days? Blessed
are those that expect nothing. But are
there not an increasing multitude of
persons in the United States who have
the most exaggerated expectations of
personal profit on Christmas day? Per-
haps it is not quite so bad as this, but
it is safe to say that what the children
alone expect to receive, in money value,
would absorb the national surplus, about
which so much fuss is made. There is
really no objection to this--the terror
of the surplus is a sort of nightmare in
the cOuntry-eXcept that it destroys the
simplicity of the festival and belittles
small offerings that have their chief
value in affection. And ii points in
evitably to the creation of sort of
Christmas trust "-the modern es-
cape out of ruinous competition. When
the expense of our annual charity be-
comes so great that the poor are dis
outraged from sharing in it, and the
rich even feel it burden, there would
seem to be no way but the establish
ment of neighborhood trusts" in
order to equaliZe both cost and distribu-
ton. Each family could buy share
according TO its means, and the division
on Christmas day would create a uni
versal satisfaction in proft-sharing-
that Is, the rich would get as much as
the poor, aud the rivalry of ostentation
would be quoted, Perhaps with the