The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-26

the Christmas season which makes Il
 so dear in memory, so softening anc
 purifying in it's actual effects. We are
 all children now. children at least ir
 this respect that old antagonisms are 1 forgotten, old animosities softened ano 1 each of us feels that for a time at least
 it is good and even the best that we
 should turn our feet in the paths of
 peace and do what we can to make glad and bright the eyes of men
 Think of how many poor, sad and un-
 happy souls at this time have a glimpse of what life might be to them and to millions of others if only
 the gentleness of love, the good will
 and the kindness that delight in bring ing happiness to old and young were
 the invariab habit and life of the | world. No one can deny that it is real. | No one either can deny that it is good. l Let the life that moves us for a day 1 become the life that moves us every
 day and what world it would be. It
 is not impossible for if it is possible
 once it means that this possibility can
 become an established reality. It is
 slow and it is hard but l think each l y Cetl CD WY SolilC lCullV lO tilC MI LII cL | Christ and plant anew in our hearts
 the seeds of gentleness, of simplicity
 and the sweet sacrifices of love and the | blessings of unselfish giving we all are
 not only richer and stronger but at the
 same time feel that the larger day is | coming for us when this shall be the
 atmosphere of all our lives. We face l the old sad world with sorrowful eyes 1 and say it is so long in coming this better life of which we dream Yes | it is slow but is it not slow with each single soul? The margin of this childs rule spreads in each life, a little larger this year than last. The sweetness of ! this day goes back little farther in each year and reaches forward more
 each time it has past and so by slow
 degrees as we live our lives in the
 fierce contentious of the day and the
 hard controversies of men we are a
 little gentler than we were, are we
 not? And if we are gentler and hum-
 bler if we are more simple in our af-
 factions and more tender in our lives
 are we not following more and more ill
 the right path and is not a little child
 leading us? Ridicule, scorn, the hot
 passions of men, their pride and their
 selfishness, their lust and their sin,
 the old evil of the' world stands some
 how abashed and silent and powerless
 before this face that calls us back from
 these by the wstfulness of its yearn-
 ing by the pathos of it's great intention.
 It was for our sakes He gave himself
 to us And gave himself in such utter
 helplessness that no hand is so weak
 that it cannot bruise that little face and yet that weakness is it's strength. For the human soul revolted against Its own cruelty and could not refuse that helpless pleading. This is what comes to us now and this is also what
 we need now. The large maturity of His life stands sometimes so far above us in it's completeness that we feel He is sufficient for Himself. But the Christ child needs our love and our obedience, our wonder and our protec- tion. Not to love a little child seems to open up a strange abyss of dark ness in the soul of man and yet we do not love this little child as He wishes to be loved. He is not one that would compel us. Each heart is strong enough to cast Him out. He will use no force to drive us in the way that we should go but He reaches for our hand as one that loves us and He leads us with Him, away from ourselves and our sins, from our hardness and our ungentleness into the path of love and peace. How strange it all is, and how irresistible is His appeal to all that is best in us. The world may laugh and wise people scoff | and thoughtless ones refuse, but how we'll God knew the unknown mysteries of our nature when He sends little | child to us to plead with us that we | may be pure and simple and true to Him and to each other. An how many wears the mind runs back to the child hood long and with it's come the mem ories of old faces filled with kindness. now long since faded from the eyes of men, young ones too that then felt the full tide of life setting towards that vast unknown sea of the future, ana mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and children too, that are neV- CT together any more except when on Christmas night when all is silent we sit alone and gather around us again the faces we have lost and hear again the voices that are silent now forever And they come to us Christmas night as they never come at other times. They come then in their kindness, and their love, in the simplicity of their affection and the innocency of their joy and the little child that brought them all to- gether once and again in the old gray, lender past now brings them back to IS in our loneliness and we thank God Tor all they were to us and pray that we may be more humble, and more gen ,rovs, more simple and sinless in our ives And when we pray for all this Ire we not praying that we may be a ,hild again, a child at least ; Il all that goes to make fife gentler and sweeter and as these .ad and gracious thoughts gather about { he soul we know that little child is ' eadng us and that child was born at 1 Bethlehem. ..'
 THREE CHRTSTMASES.