The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-25
THE RIGHT TO BE MERRY on
CHRISTMAS DAY.

Merry Christmas" is the chorus by
voices childish and sweet that rises
like an incense to heaven all over the
world this early morn. It is the chill
dren's day. Because so many centu-
ries ago One whom al the best that
have lived since then have learned to
reverence and love was a little child,
the heart of the world turns this once
in the year to its children. For them
the sorrow and the anxiety are shut
away in the background. For them the
narrow purse is opened freely and the
treasures of love are squandered. None
is too high or too low for the ministry
Of love; and this SCARED earth and this
militant humanity of ours forget the
sounds of battle and give this sacred
day to making the children happy.
For these few hours at least the elder
of US upon whom the years have left
their mark forget it all; and, in sight
of the children's happiness, penetrated
by their warm enthusiasm, touched
through the crust of years by the gold
en- glow of happiness and the wonderful
they live, our hearts become for this
blessed space as the heart Of a little
child
That is the best of it; to make US all
We doff the poor prerogatives of age
and experience and worldly wisdom
and the bitter-sweet that wreathes
about the passing years, and knock
ence more at the portals of the fairy
realm where childhood lives. When we
are willing to do that, though it be but
a moments lull in the battle, when Sle
man and woman whom the years have
turned from heavenly purposes and
blinded with the glare of unreality can
become once more only the children of
an elder growth, they share the hertz
age Of Christmastfde. To all who have
comes the right to be merry on Christ
mas day.
Once in the year we aspire to It,
Because custom has consecrated this
beautiful memory, because there linger
about it traditions that fill us with
tenderness and ineffabie longing, be-
cause the children have learned to love
it and to make it their own, we are
willing to lay aside the laws that bind
us through other and more evil times.
We become, for this great day of
days, unselfish. We think first Of 9TH
aers. We study how to make some one
happy; and most of all, to bring a
glory into the lives of those who never
can repay US. We give to the little
ones, asking nothing again but love.
We count it a fearful thing that any,
no matter whether SHINING or unfor-
tunate, should go cold or hungry or
houseless on the nativity. We Danish
the greed of gain and of life that part
us between the misery of conquest and
the fear of being vanquished We turn
upside down, for the sake Of this brief
December span, the whole world of the
political economists, the politicians, the
business men. the wise ones of this
world. For God has chosen the simple
to confound them, and out of their
mouths hath perfected praise. So, until
in the gray winters dawn we put away
from us the beautiful poetry Of life that
possessed us like ineffable music and
go out again to make smoke and noise
and carnage and to give blows and bear
them. we have made over the world in
the image Of the children. But for
that, none of us would dare to make
merry or to be glad Of heart when
Christmas comes.
Yet are there those who have guessed
the simple secret which lies beneath
the observance of this anniversary
There are those to whom it comes with
.viyidness and reality almost like the
EArting OF the armament and the
sffange procession Of the shining stars