Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-12-27
Trials and Vexations OF
Christmas Gift Ching

IHIL SLnLQ
Shall we abolish Christmas. The
day of hallowed JOY is becoming day
of sordid expenditure and dread, we
the active powers that are on the trail
Of all our exravagant taxation may
fairly consider whether we are tend
ing. OF course, our Puritan ancestors
foresaw this. The pagan tendency,
as the pagan origin OF the day was
duly considered by them and its grand
festivities held ever In allegiance to
the thanksgiving celebration. which
that socity would effectually take the
day out of their hands and, with forms
and edicts more binding than the
laws Of the Modes and Persians, deter
mine the nature of its observance they
shrewdly OWNED.
So now the expected has happened,
and a nation like the Greeks bearing
gifts, presents itself as the main
spectacle for the Christmas festival;
Greeks, the gifts are SO i'll proportion
ed or perfunctory that the very end of
giving. is lost in them. Wherefore a
day Of rejoicing is turned to day Of
taxation" and dread" and social
victims are sending appeals to public
writer's and speakers to help them out
of the net of conventions and obliga-
tions in which they have become en-
tangled.
On general principles. and to an
observer from the outside this out
cry against expenditures and costly
gifts thtat are at the seeming option
of the individual. wears curious COM
plexion. 1t is not strange to find a
voice from the broad. free west de-
clarfng that mo one but compound
lunatie" need be caught in the folly Of
the gift that "disjoints his purse" but
obngations in the house of mirth
which self-respecting souls are called
upon to face, is not taken into the
reckoning
Fortune Sells Luxury.
I'VE read on the forehead Of those
who are surrounded by a foolish lux
airy that fortune sells what she is
thought to give" says La Fontaine,
and 1t is a fact In all human history
that there is not gift or grace piss
ing from man to man that must not
be paid for at full valuation in some
form or other. To give, expecting
nothing in return, not even the piolls
Estrella's transported fortune" laid
upNlHlOuSu dSlo I'll CJdilEt III ISdHCu.
is not given to the finite creature. All
the free gifts come from above and,
as Christmas Is designed to celebrate
the suprme gift of all, it Is certainly
q strange perversion Of it to make 1t
shoulder the whole burden of crazy
giving and social indebtedness and ex-
travagance which an age Of luxury
could bring with It,
1t is much like making the church
{-.y, -.
which the society leaders of a west
ern congregation recently indulged in
when the ice cream for the social
was carried BY" and the quarrel that
ensued left the local druggist, of whom
1t was ordered, in the hands of ply
stefan from the pummeling of the
fashionable sisters, and one of the
sisters with black eye, from tack
ling the expressman deputed to de-
liver it. Means and ends are not al
ways as hannily adjusted as the logi-
clans might desire, and to get back to
first principles is the only way to save
social or even divine institutions in
many cases. That the problem of CIV
ing will find some more rational solu-
tion in the bosom of society itself is
the hone whicht the present discon-
tent win existing exactions carries,
and meantime. that the light of the
ydiOIloS lSSl1Ndl Will sSLlH6 Oh, ike
sunshine which, though broken in the
rill and turned aside is sunshine still"
STILL"
The eternal principle that as is the
receiver, so is the gift" must sooner
or later bring the spiritual being to
the plentit,de Of blessings the Beth
lehem angels bring, without bankrupt
Ing his stock of material blessings on
the way to it. This matter of giving
and taking gifts along the human line
appears to be an old trouble. Chou
shalt take no gift" says the old mo-
sale law, "for the gift bindeth the wise
and perverteth the words of the right
eous. and "he that hateth gifts shall
live,' says Solomon, which shows that
bribery and corruption are not con-
fined to our own shrewd days.
About the only gifts that the sacred
writer's smile upon were gifts to the
poor, or those gifts that came down
from heaven, which the wise proverb
maker refers to as the gift that MAX
eth room for man and bringeth him
before the great" Nevertheless the
day that brought the wise men with
gifts, gold and frankincense and
myrrn to the cradle of the infant Sa-
VlOr, STRUCK a new note In the prob
lem of giving, which could divinely
adjust the matter If the blind and sor-
did world would heed It. The gift of
love is really the only one which can
be happily laid upon any altnr, human
or divine. Costly that offering as the
purse can buy, or humble as the purse
less loved one can fashion in domestic
corners, it can bring nothing hut Joy
and blessing to him who gives and him
who takes, and while the Smart set
or any ether set is hunting remedies
for the irksome social obligations that
Cypress 1t, 1t might be well to consider
that this law of love in the interchange
of tokens is the incest one to turn the
tide Of unwelcome, burdensome and
sordid favors aside, and fix the lines
of truly select and cultured for any
society.
Some Foolish Gifts.
On the dressing case of the fashion
able hostess asyoung lady, rather new
to the ways of society, noticed a most
superb jewel case, presented to a lady
H.