The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1916-12-28

such things; but remember, there are
other gifts beside those that can be
weighed and measured" He or she
who gives friendship to the heart
sick, strength to the weak, encourage
ment to the faltering and inspiration
to those who are made for greater
things; gives infinitely more than
those who give Jewels OF fabulous
price. Give what you can, but prin-
cipally from the riches of heart and
soul. 1t is such gifts that add most
truly to the welfare and happiness OF
the world, and it is such purpose that
the Christmas spirit has come to
create in the life of the human race
"They shall not hurt or destroy in
all my holy mountains" This is the
promise of ultimate arcady on earth
But from Hannibal, the Carthagsni-
an general, to the meeting of the ma
tions at the Hague, earthly glory has
been lavished not upon the advocates
of peace, but upon those whose trade
is war. The bird of prey is glorified
above the docile dove. Nevertheless
peace alone survives. The European
war has plowed great burrows, but the
seed sown therein yields better fruit,
and physical death gathers the har-
vest. Ruin, chaos and destruction
reign supreme. Ancient Rome at the
Zenith of its worldly glory, gained al
most the whole world and lost it's own
soul. Cato's clamoring against Car
thage is vain echo, and Caesar Civ
ing his little Senate laws, is poet s
jest, but the sermons of the Gentle
Nazarene are eternal messages to
man, perennially new, forever soul
inspiring and eternally sublime, illu-
minating the celestial pathway to the
bosom of Omnipotence.
The life of righteous thoughts and
deeds does not parish. Such acts and
aspirations bloom forever in the fields
of heaven; on earth, they grow only
along the paths of peace.
We cannot think of Christmas
without thought of its meaning. 1t
means something special to everybody
and it creates in nearly every mind
desire to enter more deeply into the
soul of that which it means to him or
her. The spirit of Christmas seeks
not to find wherein we disagree but
wherein we all unite. 1t is a power
that draws together, that cements the
many into one.
1t is the Christmas spirit that
warns the heart as a winters fire;
that inspires as the sweetest music.
By reason of the worlds cares and
griefs its adversely and neart breaks, |
Christmas is the greatest event that
has blessed and is blessing mankind.
This high festival with its many
gifts and rich happiness, has done
much to make the home the most sac
red of American institutions.
John Howard Payne wrote his I'M
mortal song Home Sweet Home at !
midnight Of Christmas Eve. It
seems that he had gone abroad, had
fallen on i'll health and hard times
4 stranger in a strange land. The
hight before Christmas his little room
seemed to him like cold cell. He
rushed out into the street to comfort
himself by looking at the lighted win
lows. Comfort he could not flnd.
Returning to his room, he forgot the
bleak winter and sickness of his
leart.. Thoughts of his former life
If his childhood scenes, so dear to
he human heart came vividly before
lis mental vision.
With his inner eye, he saw the old
lone, he saw the warm and benign
mile of his spiritualized mother So
ourning in the celestial home Of
,eace, the old family Bible was lying
IN the table his fathers revered voice
fingered in his ear. All at once, IL
animated by the flashes of inspira-
ion, the thought there is no place
ike home" infused into his mind.
Ie composed the beautiful song,
Home, Sweet Home now immorta-
lied upon the scrolls of musical IL
erature.
Christmas is the King of holidays
nd it is the day when those advanced
n years, burdened with the cares of
ife and stricken with physical and
mental inharmonies, feel the tingle of
'outh in their veins and join in the
horus, Peace on Earth and Good
will to-men."
So far as Morrow County is con-
erned, never before has there been
10 much happiness, and such an
bundance of crops, for which it is re-
eiving an exhorbitant price. And
What applies to Morrow county is al
10 applicable more or less to other
tates of the Union.
The press, including the Heppner
5azette-Times, the oldest newspaper
n Morrow county, and the schools are
knowledge universal. The
beautiful is increasingly diffused
through the magazines; the clothes
which persons and children wear;
he. gasoline wagons, in which many