Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1946-12-27

experienced the saddest holy-day
season of my memory. It was in
shattered Nuremberg with my
thoughts on its rubble and the ruins,
ugly symbols of mans inhumanity
to man, the negation of our Saviour's
teachings. had pleny of food and
drink and shelter and was clothed
in the uniform which is reminder
of a career of which I am proud
despite its implications. But was as
homesick as any young soldier in
lonely outpost with the threat of bat
tie about him for I could picture
my own hearthside and the little
group about the happy tree, my
own tinseled packages unopened,
and my empty hands reaching out
vainly over the oceans too wide to
span. And all about me were the
signs of anguish, cramped souls,
pinched bodies and the wreckage of
the handicraft blossomed in stone
and canvas and parchment which
has enriched the world through the
centuries.
I stood in the desolate little
square faced by the wreckage
of buildings, thinking Of what
Rudyard Kipling called "Christ-
mas past" You may know the
poem, breathing the nostalgia of
an Englishman still clinging to
his boyhood memories of Eng
land, contrasting them with
what he saw about him in India.
ooh the white dust on the high
way! Oh the stenches in the
byway! Oh the clammy fog that
hovers over earth! And at home
they're making merry meath the
white and scarlet berry-what
part have India's exiles in their
mirth."
Nuremberg! In the shadow of her
ancient castle grew tradition which
lived on to modern days; tradition
made eternal by the woodcuts and
engravings of Albrecht Duerer
whose 50O-year-old house still stood
but only as a fragile ghost which
soon must yield to demolition
squads, a hollow shell despite the
proud persistence of its storied ia
cade; a tradition made by the
Meistersinger whose memory was
enshrined in the home of Hans
Sachs-a house now only shapeless
pile of rubble.
For the second time I had occa-
sion to recall the yearning in those
unhappy Kipling verses. The first
time was more than two wars be-
fore. We two lonely Americans
looked down from the window of
our little room in a pension on the
Boulevard Montparnasse in the Lat
in Quarter on a snoWleSS, aching
Christmas in Paris. Below was
deserted convent garden. If only the
figure of a single nun had broken
the damp stiffness curtaining leaf
less trees and withered flowers! But
no, they were all deep in their devo-
tions and not even the faint echo of
the evensong or the moan of the or
gan reached us. Nor was there
holly or mistletoe (no white or scar
let berry,, for the Latin Christmas
bears little resemblance to ours.
Long months had stretched to years
since I had seen lighted Christmas
tree, evergreen festoon or bright
ribboned wreath, or listened to the
ringing crunch of footballs in the
powdery snow, or sleighbells-no
novelty then in our northern cline.
I thought then of Kipling's lament
of the exile and understood him
when he said, faint and forced the
laughter, and if sadness follow aft
er, we are richer for one mocking
Christmas past"
Today as Yuletide rolls around
once more, despite the shadows that
fall across many hearth, and the
postwar worries that beset US, we
at least can glory in the heritage
of an American Christmas in the
land which the God of our Fathers
has bequeathed us.