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Page 13
"Who is this gentleman, William?" she asked quietly, and John Carstairs
was forever grateful to her for her word that night.
"This," said William Carstairs, "is my father's son, my brother, who was
dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."
And so, as it began with the beginning, this story ends with the ending
of the best and most famous of all the stories that were ever told.
[Illustration]
ON CHRISTMAS GIVING
[Illustration]
_Being a Word of Much Needed Advice_
Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God's
ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul has ever been
able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever
been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been
wise enough to express it. Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the
blessing and would fain convey it fitly. Therefore to commemorate that
great gift the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has
grown until it has become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we
ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for
those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic
message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas
day however we may feel before or after.
But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many
instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of
exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time
for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to
purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To
paraphrase Polonius, "Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but not
expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man." In making
presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse, the
character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not
plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in
months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the other
hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid
selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all
than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your
affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at
all. "The gift without the giver is bare."
And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The
_lex talionis_ has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel
that you must give to someone because someone gave to you. There is no
barter about it. You give because you love and without a thought of
return. Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby. I
know one upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty
people, rich and poor, high and low, able and not able. That man would
be dismayed beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to
make a return for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.
In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your
gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle
consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your
abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who
needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness,
and disappointment.
Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge
one's self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the
noblest method of commemorating the day. The rules and laws of digestion
are not abrogated upon the Holy day. These are material cautions, the
day has a spiritual significance of which material manifestations are,
or ought to be, outward and visible expressions only.
Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year,
then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around
the table of the Lord, kneeling before God's altar in the ministering of
that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and
the future--the communion of the saints of God's Holy Church with His
Beloved Son. Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly
participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and
there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become
factors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout
the ages and throughout the world.
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