The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-08-17
LOOK TOWARD HUMANITY:
WRITTEN BY EDGAR Tiff

Christmas in the olden time was a
day to forgive and forget; a time to
loosen heartstrings, melt down pride,
thaw out old grudges, love your neigh
Dor as yourself, and garnish and
sweep clean the soul from all uncharit-
ableness and enmity.
1t was leveling day. The spirit OF
equality was uppermost. All class and
social distinctions were wiped out
Landlord and servant met on perfect
equality. Distinction and royalty low
cred their crests for one day. The
slave was free. The serf, the drudge,
the poor clod who lived in his mud
house, the wretched peasant who
nightly crawled to his pallet of stub
BILE and straw, all dined at the mas
ter's table. High and low, rich and
poor, freeman and bondman, master
and servant, were equal, and then
and there the rainbow Of promise,
the prophecy of the future shown
forth.
Truly christ's Day
Both at home and in the church there
was a brief season Of freedom, SYM
patty and love. 1t was Christ's day,
truly The gentle, the broad, the lib
erty-giving spirit of Jesus--a gospel
not yet comprehended after centuries
Of preaching-held full sway for a few
short hours.
so vividly remember the first i'm
preston of the Worlds Fair enter
ed from the lake, by the peristyle and
the collonade, and thought had never
dreamed of such beauty. and had never
before seen such soft, velvety green
grass; but as | turned and looked at
one of those white buildings, now
forever gone, saw upon its facade,
in letters writ large, these words:
"And We shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free"
And for moment ! seemed to stand
upon the pinnacle Of our civilization
and look down the long centuries, with
their struggles and pains and never
ending strivings for progress and free
dom, and realized what great fac
tor this truth had been. awakening
nations, and bringing men everywhere
to a broader sense of human brother
hood; and / thought, perhaps we are
coming to a better future when the
spirit that blessed the olden time
Christmas will prevail, and every day
will be a "children's festival and a
feast of light" and there will be
neither bondmen, drudge. clod or out
cast, nor pinched and starving beings
huddled into novels of squalor and
degradation
Church Makes Mistakes
h. al oh G
takes in its festivities We all do.
We are not insensible to the fact that
the puritan did good service to the
cause of civil liberty, and snatched
the Pickering torch of freedom from
tn, wrecks of corrupt government and
ha lded it on to us; but when he start
ed in to wipe out the mistakes he
swung the pendulum too far. He des-
troyed the good with the bad. He
in every way attested his hatred for
Christmas and its pastimes and am
easements. He checked the child with
terror, stopped it's voice and stilled
its song, and not alone committed er-
ror, but a grevious moral wrong.
One of the sins the puritan must
answer for Is that he curdled re-
ligion. Religion, pure and undefiled,
is sweet milk. The puritan turned it
to clabber. It is hard to tell which
he hated worse, happy children or Gus.
tard pie. A man without gaunt jaw
or sniveling whine, and with a twink
ling eye and a hearty laugh was to
him a great sinner. The refinements
and amenities Of life were awfully
wicked.
1t was the puritan who drove
Christmas festivities from both the
church and the home. 1t was the puri-
tan who made people enjoy them