The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-12-13

Chicago, December 6,-In this sermon
 the preacher urges as n ittlng commence
 ration of the Christmas time the healing
 of family differences and the putting aside forever of all dissensipns, in accordance
 with the spirit and teachings of the sa-
 cred season. The text Is Luke IL 1A On
 earth peace, good will toward men, l Christmas day has the manager for it's
 gem, with the home for setting. From time immemorinl the eommemorntion of
 the birth of Christ has had It's true and real celebration not so much in public
 festivity and church ceremonial IS in the
 family gathering around the domestic flreslde, Other customs may change, new
 movements may transform our social life,
 but the Christmas family gathering main- tains its hold on society. The other day
 a convict was liberated from Sing Sing penitentiary He had been imprisoned
 there for nearly thirty years. He was
 pardoned. a white haired old man of GA
 years He went in strong-limbed young
 man of 30. Up to 1903 he had never ridden l on an electric car; he had never seen the l wonderful development of the telephone; l he had never seen an automobile or the l marvellous development of doing business through the typewriter. He said that he
 was coming into strange and new world not the world he left but another he had never seen. But though many cus- toms may change within a quarter of
 century the customs of Christmas day
 neither change in a generation or cen tury. Christmas day always has been
 and we hope always will be a family day It Is well that at least once year the children and the grandchildren, the brothers and the sisters and the nephews and the nieces, as well as the fathers and mothers and grandparents, should be gathered within the four walls of the old homestead. and 1t is appropriate that tine season for such reunions should be that at which we celebrate the addvent of our Lord.
 Blood Thicker Than Water.
 But though God "setteth the solitary
 in families" though on Christmas day.
 above all other days he would have us
 worship him in communion with our kith and kin, though we should delight to
 prove that blood is thicker than water, yet the startling fact remains uncontro-
 verted that the grinning skeleton. which rattles it's bones and clatters Its teeth
 almost every Christmas eve in almost
 every family closet, is the hideous skele- ton of domestic strife. Ky this statement
 we do not mean that the father and moth- CT and he little children living within the l four walls of a house are necessarily un- l happy or that most homes are not peace 1 ful and loving. We do mean, however, 1 that the family name, taken in it's larger
 relation, is not always loving and har- ] monious name. We do mean by this l statement that after the father and i mother have been carried out to their last 1 resting place. to sleep the sleep of death l under coverlid of snow arrangements i often arise between the married children. l We do mean by this statement that many 1 and many a home has been split from 1 top to bottom on account of the second
 marriage of father mother. We do
 mean that today all over the United States brothers can be found at variance 1 with brothers, sisters with sisters and l cousins with cousins.
 This nation is struck through and through with family strife. The Appa- lachian mountains, where Kentucky, Ten 1 nessee, Virginia and West Virginia meet, have aptly been called ''the land of the
 fuedn There families Have battled with
 each other for generations. There the McCoys and the Hatfields have we'll nigh exterminated each other. There the How 1 ards and the Turner's have fought each other to the death. There the wounded
 John Philipotts shot dead the four Grif- l fins. and he himself was found uncon- 1 scious among his slain. But though the | Appalachlans can be called "the land of
 the feud," the whole United States can | truthfully be termed 'the land of family l strife" If | were to enter your family
 homes and learn the inner secrets of | those homes in all probability there would
 be found not one family which among it's
 larger connections is not cursed with in-
 ternal strife.