Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-12-26

Then. 10 begin On the OutermOst rim
OF ny subject. Christmas festivities
would never have been observed, Christ
mas carols never sung. Christmas gifts
never bestowed. Christmas games never
IIfyed. Christmas bells never rang.
V hat an awful subtraction from the
toItd's brightness would have been the
making of Dec. 20 like other days of
the year, Glorious day After bright
ering England and Holland and Ger
many fer centuries it stepped across the
sea and pronounced its benediction on
our shores. Why, we never get over our
childhood Christmases Father and
mother joined in them. They forgot
their rheumatisms and shortness Of
breath, and for awhile threw off the
sorrows Of lifetime while they strug
gled with US as to who should first in
the morning shout the MERRY Christ
masi" Then there were all the limo
cent allurements as to who brought the
presents and the wonderment as to how
sleighs drawn by reindeer could come
down the perpendicular, and after ward
the disappointment as some older broth
er or sister, with all the pride of dis
coyery, tried to persuade US that the
chimney had not been the channel Of
generous descent. Oh, what times they
were, the Christmases of our boyhood
and eirlhood days! We still feel in our
pulses some of the exuberance which we
then unwittingly stored up for future
times, when the eye might lose some of
it's luster, and the foot some Of its
spring, and the heart some of its re-
bound. How holly and rosemary and
ivy and mistletoe looked interviewer
The Puritans may not have liked the
day, and John Calvin may have pro-
nounced it superstitious and feared it
would bring into religious observance
the saturnalia of the heather, the dec
orations of ivy inappropriate because
ivy had been dedicated to Bacchus, and
mistletoe inappropriate because mis-
tletoe had been associated with Drudical
rites, but we testify that Christmas
never did US any harm, and the only
objection we ever expressed was that it
was so long time from Christmas to
Christmas. Ecclesiastical controversy as
to whether ii ought to be celebrated on
the 9th CT January, or 29th of March,
or goth of September, Or 25th of De-
cember did not bother Us then any
more than it bOthers US now. 1t always
came at the right time, although lit
tie late, and now we realize that Christ
mas comes OPPORTUNITY, just after the
shortest day of the year, Dec. 81, and
at the time when days are lengthening
and the sun is recommending its up
ward course, telling us that spring and
summer are coming. Oh, what a forest
of Christmas treasures bearing IL
manner of fruits-now standing
throughout the households of Christen-
dom! Oh, what hosannas are ascending
on this day, the Christmas of a Saw
iour's birth, this year blending with the
Sabbath of Saviour S resurrection Do
you not feel the thrill, the glow, the
enlargement, the triumph of this day,
and will not your charities go forth IN
til you sy1npathize with the quaint old
Christmas carol-so old do not know
who wrote Tits title, "Scatter Your
Crumbs:'
Midst the freezing sleet and snow
The tiTnid robin comes.
In pity drive him not away,
But scatter out your crumbs
And leave your door upon the latch
For whosoever comes.
The poorer they. more welcome give
And scatter out your crumbs
All have to spare, none are too poor,
When want with winter comes,
And life is never all your own.
Then scatter out the crumbs
Soon winter falls upon your life,
The day of reckoning comes;
Against your sins, by high decree,
Arc ytcalf hos 01.Gdn NH
Christmas Bells.
Can the angel which st. John saw
with measuring rod measuring heaven
or hath any seraphic intelligence fac
ulty enough to calculate the magnif-
cent effect which 1898 Christmas
mornings and 1898 Christmas moons
and 1898 Christmas nights have had
on our poor old planet? Let us thank
God that we live to see this Christmas
the bells Of which ring out SO clear, SO
inspiring. so jubilant-bells of family
reunion, bells Of church jubilee, bells
of national victory. But had either Mel
chior CT Balthasar or Caspar, the three
wise men CT the east, who had put down
the sacks of aromatic frankincense or
bags of chinkine gold by the bare feet
VI oHo IHidHe Lulu, IepOIloO " 116iOu
palace the place where they found the
child the swift horses of executioners
would have carried death to that babe
Graded in Mary's arm, and the Bethle
hem star would have been star of
and instead of song of natiy-
ity, which the nations are now chant.
ing, this day would be chiefly memora-
BILE for the shrek of bereft motherhood.
Still further remarking upon the mar
row escape which you and I had ard
all the world had in that babes escape,
let me say that had that Herodic plot
been successful the one instance of alb