The Penn's Grove record., 1893-12-22
Christmas.


joyful thoughts to children of all the
year has come again to cheer the hearts
of all with generous Thoughts of the
Child. Christ, ''the given of every good
and perfect gift"
Why is Christmas held and what does
it commemorate? Some may think it
silly to ask such in these days of Christ
mas enlightenment, yet there are many
grown persons, as well as children who
attend Sunday school, who cannot tell.
A Sunday school teacher once asked a
small boy, near Christmas time, who
said: "Suffer little children to come un.
to me?" "Santa Claus" he replied
with "a vehelnence that quite unsettled
the teacher.
That shows the average knowledge
of children on Christmas and Christ,
because the hero of most Christmas
celebration is st. Nicholas. who is some
mysterious or superstitious being hand
ed down from the dark middle ages of
superstitution and still held too prom.
inent in entertainments given by Chris
tian Churches and Sunday Schools, be.
cause it overwhelms the true intent
and meaning of Christmas Christ
Mass.)
The old Roman Catholic church calls
their church services and sacrifices
masses. Annual church festivals are
still celebrated by this old denomina-
ton to commemorate certain events
and Christmas is celebrated in mem
CRY of the birth of Christ. This annual
festival instituted many hundred years
ago by the Church was taken up and
made a joyful occasion by even the un-
Christianized nations of northern Eu.
rope and the popular legend of 81.
Nicholas adopted as the most promin-
ent feature of the celebration. So that
now Christmas encircles the earth and
every nation, every religion has its
Christmas.
St. Nicholas is said to have been the
bishop of Myra in Asia Minor and to
have died in 1896. He is said to have
been a very tender and generous heart
ed man, with Christ's love for the little
ones in his heart, and when he learned
of the distress OF some poor children
he left money at their home on the eve
| the Christmas festival ard also bore
presents to other children, so that when
lie died he was canOniZed in the Catho-
lie church as the patron saint of chill
dren.
The wrongful worship of this saint,
like that OF others in the Catholic
Church, became very popular among
the half Christianized Germans in the
dark ages and the Dutch Kris Kringle,
or Santa Claus, because the supersti-
tious hero of the occasion. After the
Reformation to worship God sin spirit
and in truth" the Puritan fathers re-
volted against pagan superstitions
and went to the extreme of not recog-
nizing Christmas at all, not ven the
spirit of the day.
Now the Christian churches and
writer of cantatas are swinging too far
toward the old superstitious celebra-
lions of Christmas in their rivalry, by
making superstitious Santa Claus the
hero and not giving more honor to the
Nativity, with the lUwly manager, the
star OF Bethlehem and the gilt bearing
Magi.
1t is Christ's spirit III st. Nicholas,
which is to be remembered that "'every
good gift and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the
Father of lights" While the wonder.
ing thoughts OF c~hildhood's happy
Christmas about Santa Claus are pleas
ing TO both young and old, yet the spirit
of the occasion should not he over
whelmed in Christian Church enter
tainments by the superstition of dark
ages and give many who do not attend
Church only on these occasions an idea
of levity to the holy celebration.
We wish all a true and merry Christ
mas.