The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-12-21
THE BURDEN OF CHRISTMAS.

1t would be the pity of the world to
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 any
thing. They have even invented a
phrase for it-runnipg thing into the
ground. They have perfected the art of
making so much of a thing as to kill it;
they can magnify a man, or recreation
or an institution to death. And they do
it with such hearty goodwill and en-
joyment. Their motto is that you can
not have too much of good thing.
They have almost made funerals unpop
ular by over-elaboration and display, es-
pecially what are called public funerals,
in which an effort is made to confer
great distinction on the dead. So far
has it been carried often that there has
been reaction of popular sentiment
and people have wished the man were
alive. We prosecute everything so Wig
orously that we speedily either wear it
out or wear ourselves out on it. whether
it is game or festival, or holiday.
We can use up any sport or game ever
invented quicker than any other people.
We can practice anything, like veget-
able diet, for instance, to an absurd con-
olusion with more vim than any other
nation. This trait has it's advantages;
nowhere else will delusion run so fast;
and so soon run up tree-another of
our happy phrases. There is largeness
and exhuberance about us which run
even into our ordinary phraseology.
The sympathetic clergyman, coming
from the bedside of parishionsr, dying
of dropsy, says, with heavy sigh, THE
poor fellow is just swelling away"
Is Christmas swelling away? If it is
not, it is scarcely our fault. Since the
American nation fairly got hold of the
holiday-in some parts of the country,
as in New England, it has been univers
al only about fifty years-we have made
it hum, as we like to cay. We have ap-
propriated the English conviviality, the
German simplicity. the Roman pomp
and we have added to it an element of
expense in keeping with our own great
ness. Is anybody beginning to feel it
burden, this sweet festival of charity
and good will, and to look forward to it
with apprehension?
Is the time approaching when we
shall want to get somebody to play it for
us. like baseball? Anything that inter
rupts the ordinary flow of life, and in
PRODUCES into it, in short, social cyclone
that upsets everything for fortnight,
may in time be as hard to bear as that
festival of housewives called house.
cleaning, that riot of cleanliness which
men fear as they do panic in business.
Taking into account the present prepa~
rations for Christmas, and the time it
takes to recover from it, we are begin
ning-are we MOTTO consider it one of
the most serious events of modern life.
We are led into these observations
out of it's love for Christmas. 1t is i'm
possible to conceiye of any holiday that
could take it's place, nor indeed would it
seem that human wit could invent an
other SO adapted to humanity. The OBJ
vious intention of it is to bring together.
for a season at least, all men in the
exercise of a common charity and
feeling of goodwill, the poor and the
rich, the successful and the unfort
innate, 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 exagger-
ated 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 increas-
ing multitude of persons in the United
States who have the most exaggerated
expectations of personal profit on Christ
mas Day? Perhaps 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 ma
tional surplus about which so much fuss
is made. Perhaps with the money
ouastion q little aubdued and the fe-
male anxieties of the festival allayed,
there would be more room for the de-
velopment of that sweet spirit of broth
erly kindness. of all-embracing charity.
which we know underlies this best festi
val of all the ages. Is this an old SER
mon? We trust that it is, for there can
be nothing new in the preaching Of sim
plicity.-Charles Dudley Warner. in
Harper's Magazine.