The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1916-12-15
THE, SENTINEL
CHRISTMAS.

The Christian world speaks of Christmas as a Festivals
season of rejoicing, an era of mirth, a time of annual and boun-
tiful generosity. Perhaps it is all this; but it is more it is an
awakening, a revivifying. Men have for many days grown
into sordid self greed of gain, and selfish purposes have weight.
ed down the spirit of mans nature.
GAS in the thronged amphitheatre of old
The wary Retiarus trapped his foe
so has the better part of man been entangled with enterprises
foreign to his soul; and selfish aim, like legons of unclean
spirits, have entered into that temple of the living God which
dwells within him. and have closed the doors against radiant
spirits seeking entrance there.
But Christmas comes! 1t does not come with argument,
nor does it come with force. As DER the Judean sands the
Wise Men followed the beckoning star, 4 signal without a voice,
so millions today follow the spiritual suggestion of the legend Of
Galilee and find themselves without, beyond. their will dwell
ing in the kindly radiance of the Star of Bethlehem.
The shouting and the noises of the Christmas tide are not
true voices of the Christmas spirit. 1t has no voice, it is but
the gentle fnger-touch of God. 1t sufuses us, it permeates us,
and encompasses. 1t sottens all in nature like the gentle fall
of snow making all things clean and pure.
Gladly the boy with Christmas box in hand
Throughout the town his devious route pursues,"
wishing and asking JOY of all he meets.
The buoyant lover seeks his mate to make her happiness;
the lonely mother kneels in prayer invoking the divine Spirit
to encompass her absent boy; the aged father sits and dreams
of days long gone when others shared with him the ingleside.
Gay dancers shape themselves within the brain of age; bright
spirits CLEAN before the faded eye. for it is Christmas and the
memory is awake.
We sit once more with hand in mothers: we kneel once
more at mothers knee and are children once again at Christ
mas. The drunkard with his sodden brain rouses himself to
momentary thought, and feels it's Christmas. The snowballs
and the laughter, and the shouting and the flashing of young
eyes come back to us in age, and once more we are merry boys
at Christmas Avarice and cupidity forget their nature and
fill the stocking of Perjury; the rich forget their dearest love of
self and help the poor at Christmas. The ungodly infdel for
gets his unbehef at Christmas, and knows not why-an inspira-
ton, and why? Because for nigh two thousand years an e-
sence, an impalpable. imponderable aurora has led back to the
nome OF a Ga'lean peasant a ray of light softening and purify
ing men. 1t is not the fiat of man; no man commands Christ
mas; Christmas commands all men. The Christmas spirit is
the silent voice of the best in man. 1t bids him go seek his hap
plness IN the happiness of others. 1t is the involuntary revival
of benevolence; and in this annual recrudescence of the sea-
son, which Is the renewed youth of old age, the upspringing of
hope in the young. We wish for our readers, and for all the
world a perfect season of Peace on earth and good will toward
men. May the Christmas season make you happier in the
thought that you have made others happier.