The daily Nome industrial worker., 1915-12-25

Today is Christmas Day. + is Christmas day alike i'll peaceful Anu erica and in war torn Euro1c
 Why it should be celebrated with Tom and Jerrys and other flowing and .yassail bowls we cannot pre- tend tG say, unless it is tha: the ctaract CT isticc of a much older 2ele- hration, Yuletide or Saturna'ia, are ir"piar;eG with much naturalness in this.
 originality on anything that we might say regarding Christmas. So many poor pulpiteers have been burning tte midnight oil trying to say something new on this thread bare topic that the wisest policy for an impious editor is to frankly say it is not possible.
 And yet the disturbed condition of the world today, with War ram pant, may we'll occasion few re- marks which otherwise would not nave been uttered.
 William T. Stead returning from a visit to the Passion Play at Ober- ammergau declared that his brain kept repeating This is the story that transformed the world. Stead as a noncomfrmist son of generations of noncomformists, had inherited an emotionalism which could not be denied
 If the Titanic's laundering of Cape Race had not closed the surg ing waters of the deep Atlantic upon this great journalist, Stead might well question the transforma- tion which a more peaceful time had forced upon his intellect. But the idea fitted in with his enraptureG mood and in a very practical way he compelled his journalistic mind to make the most of the idea which entranced him, in a very readable article in his Review of Reviews But is this the story that has trans
 
 peace to the sons of men? Has i1 stilled the earthly unrest of the Human Sea as incessant as the heaving of the tireless ocean? Has it abated one jot of the idle vanities, the idler ambitions, the baser hopes the inglorious dreams, the sordid nf a ma V nf kind? Rather. is it not true thaJ the world has transformed the story merely, so that the truth behind its visions has never vet heen realized and the world pre-. c.alls tho most ex traordinary spectacle Of modelling it's life work utterly at outs with what it affects to be it's firm spiri!- ual belief.
 Four-ffths of the service we see today is lip service merely. The | main incentive of human action is calculating worship of Mammon ant those peaceful activities which ill a more peaceful time stirred an emotional soul, were merely the acts of worship before the Altar of the Golden Calf and not the heart l sacrifice of the Golden Rule.
 We don't think this contrast be tween mems professions and mems practice is at all difficult of oxplana- tion.
 When Christianity came to the | world it found mems minds already | formed.
 To much that the new thought | offered men, the older thought was antagonistic Assimilation could | only take place by the older affect ing the newer form, so that christ ianity became itself organized. This | is very clear in many festivals. Un- occasionally the greater portion of | this Christmas celebration is bor- rowed entire from the Saturnalia | which had preceded it in tho Roman | economy, or the Yuletide which had | been its archetype in the Teuton or Gothic economy. And what had | taken place in the feast took place | much more imperceptibiy, much | more insidiously, much more seri- ously in the moral and intellectual | development of christianity in pa- gan lands.
 Paganism became obsolete, but | before it became obsolete 1t graftea | it's many characteristics upon re- iigion at basis wholly antagonistlc | to it. Thus the players of that terrific Drama at Oberammergan