The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-12-25
OVERRIDING the christnaa prasant.

lCharles Dudley Warner in Harpers Magazine. ]
1t would be the pity of the world to de-
stroy 1t, because it would be next to impos-
sible 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 for it, running thing i'm
to the ground They have perfected the art
Of making SO much of thing as to kill It;
they can magnify man or recreation or an
Institution TO death. And they do it with
such hearty good will and enjoyment. Their
| motto Is that you cannot have too much Of a
| good thing. They have almost made funerals
unpopular by over elaboration and display,
| especially what are called public funerals, Ia
| which an effort is made to confer great dis
tinction on the dead. So far has it been
carried often that there has been reaction
| OIL popular sentiment, and people have
| wished tine man were alive. We prosecute
everything SO vigorously that we speedily
either Wear IL out or wear ourselves out on
| II, neither 1t Is game or a festival or hOl-
| lday. We Can use up any sport or game ever
invented quicker than any other people.
| We can practice anything, like vegetable
| diet, for instance, to an absurd conclusion
with more vim than any other nation. This
trait has its advantages; nowhere else will a
deluslon run so fast, and so soon run up a
tree-another OF our happy phrases There
Is a. largeness and exuberance about us
which run even into our ordinary phrase
ology. The sympathetic clergyman coming
from bedside Of parishioner dying Of
drnpsy, says with heavy sigh, "The poor
| fellow Is just swelling away ioE 1
Is Christmas swelling away? If it is not,
IL ~ scarcely our fault Since the American
nation fairly got hold Of the h0liday--in some
| parts OF the country, AS New England, it has
been universal only about so years-we have
made II hum, as We like to say. We have
| appropriated the English conviviality, the
German simplicity, the Roman pomp, and we
have added to 1t an element of expense in
| keeping with our own greatness. Is any
body beginning TO feel 1t a burden, this SWEET
time approaching when We shall want to look
forward to it with apprehension? Is the
time approaching when we shall want to get
somebody to play it for us, like base bali +?
| Anything that interrupts the ordinary flow
| OF life, introduces into it, in short. a social
| cyclone that upsets everything for fort
night, may IN time be as hard to BEER as that
festival OF housewives called house-cleanipg,
that riot OF cleanliness that men fear as
they do panic In business Taking into ac-
count the present preparations for Christ
mas, and the time 1t takes to recover from it,
| we are beg nning-are we not? to consider
| It one OF the most serious events of modern
| life. -
The Drawer is led into these observations
out OF its love for Christmas. 1t is ippossi-
BILE to conceive of any holiday that could take
| its place, nor, indeed, would it seem that hu-
man wit could invent another SO adapted to
humanity. The obvious intention OF it Is to
bring together, for season, at least, ali men
In The exercise Of a common charity and a
feeling Of goodwill, the poor and the rich,
the successful and the unfortunate, 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 TINS Intention then, If in our way OF ex-
aggerated ostentation of charity the distinc-
ton 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 per
sons In the United States who have the most
exagger' ted expectations of personal profit
ON Christmas day? Perhaps it is not quite
50 bad as this, but it is safe to say that what
the children alone expect to receive, in
money value. would absorb the national sur
plus about which so much fuss is made.
There Is really no objection to this-the ter
ror OF the surplus is a sort of nightmare In
the country-except that it destroys the sim
plicity of the festival and belittles small Of
ferings that have their chief value in affec-
ton. And It points Inevitably to creation
of sort of Christmas ''trust'--the modern
escape out of ruinous competition. When
the expense of our annual charity becomes
so great that the poor are discouraged from
sharing in 1t, and the rich even steel 1t bur-
den, there would seem to be no way but the
establishment of neighborhood trusts" in
nIder to equalize both cost and dist ibution
Each family could buy share. according to
its means. and the division on Christmas day
would create a universal satisfaction in
profit sharing-that is. the rich would get as
much as the poor, and the rivalry of ostenta-
ton would be quieted. Perhaps with the
money question little subiued, and the fe-
male an xieties OF the festival allayed, there
would be more room for the development Of
that sweet spirit of brotherly kindness of all
embracing charity, which we know under
lies this best festival of all the ages, Is this
an old sermon? The Drawer that it is for
there can be nothing new in the preaching of
simplicity