Norwich bulletin., 1916-12-23

| l fection that we have helped make a Merry Christmas for somebody, and we get back to normal digestion, after our inevitable kid-lfke indulgence in | sweets, and the scraps of red cord or ' ribbon, and the sprigs of holly are deposited in the waste basket, and the household settles down to it's hum | drum, all-the-year condition, some hoy we have new glow at the heart and the pleasure has outweighed largely the fuss and the confusion and the trouble and the expenditure.
 Of course few pessimists are say- l ing as usual: Bah. How foolish! Christmas should be for children and for them only! It is a silly custom for their elders to make giftsl Es- pecially this year, when there is so much privation and suffering among
 the millions in the warning coun- triesi''
 l 1 heard the other day of the beauti- 1 ful and original way in which one family is keepink Christmas, in its loftiest spirit, while answering tie objections of said pessinists, and at the same time sending cheer to the unknown little brothers and sisters in foreign lands, thousands of them as meanly housed and as destitute and as friend1ess, as was the One from Whom Christmas borrows its inspira- tion and it's lustre and its charm of magic influence upon otherwise du1l souls in work-a-day world
 Such joy as this particular house. hold has had for WeeksE Instead of purchasing each other the regulation gifts, each has given the o.ner, oh, 1 the strangeSt of presents! Toys, and l tiny warm dresses, and cunning knit ted socks, and wee caps, and comfy things for cribs, and the like. Santa 10 O TxJizo and TloiT1 d-r for each on receiving these odd gifts ] has declared them, "Just what i wanted!'' although the gentle mother of the household was remembered" | with sets of outing romper5, and an- other member of the family with knit ted horse-reins, gay with dangling l little brass bells.
 l These wise mortaIs "shopped earIy", | too; and mailed their Christmas pack age with most conmendable haste; for, as it was told to me, all tl,6se gifts were boxed long ago, and for | warded to a sweet little French Sister of Charity, who is at the front caring for the wounded, yet is in close touch with the needy orphans.
 Now, wasn't that beautiful thought? Worth ten years of ordin- 1 ary, prosafc life! How much such 1 energy and unselfishness would do to ! mortals who keep saying, "For my 1 part, I wish Christmas didn't come But | once a century,"
 How different the wish of that master-mind, Charles Dickens, to whom, perhaps, next to the Bib.e, ! catch the true spirit of the season.
 defy any pessin1ist to remain un- touched, who will sit down and read with proper attention, the story of the Nativity. as told so simply yet So marvelously, in the gospel of Saint Luke, the second chapter, from the first to the 14th verse, inclusive.
 And I challenge even the hardest shelled individual to prove himself unaffected, after he has read what Dickens writes of the associations of Christmas; the outpourings of good feeling, and the honest interchange Of affectionate attachment, which abound at this season of the year! The de- lights of a, Christmas family partv where petty jealousies and discords are forgotten, social feelings are awakened in bosoms to which they have long been strangers; father and lson, or, brother and sister, who nave met and passed with averted gaze, or a look Of cold recognition, for months before, proffer and return the cordial
 embrace, and bury their past ani = mosities in their present happiness.
 Kindly hearts, that have yearned toward each other, but have been withheld by false notions of pride and elf-dignity, and again reunited, and all is kidness and benevolence. Would that Christmas lasted the whole year through Gas it ought) is Dickens wish. And from the Christmas tree he pi :- lures the images that go forth; an angel, speaking to a group of shep- herds in field: some~travelers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a Baby in a manager; a Child in a spa cious temple, talking with grave men !: a solemn Figure, with mild ard beautiful face, raising dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of widow, on his bier, to life; 8 crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where He sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in tempest, walk ing on the water to ship; again, or tude; again, with a. child upon His knee and other children round; again
 restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health
 to the sick, strength to the lame
 knowledge to the ignorant; again,
 dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, thick darkness con-
 ing on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard, Forgive
 them, for they know not what they dol"
 And the great writer ends by sayinu | Tn every image and suggestion Sha1 the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof be tke
 star of all the Christian worldl This, in conmemoration of the law of love and Kindness, mercy and compassioni