ON KEEPING CHRISTMAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

ON KEEPING CHRISTMAS.

Mr. W. J. Bardsley, the president of the Baptist Union, ill his Christmas message, published in this month's "New Zealand Baptist," quotes these challenging words of the late Henry Van Dyke on keeping Christmas: —• "Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people and remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background and your duties in the middle distance and your chances to do a little more than, your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow-m«n are just as real ae you are and try to look behind their face? to their hearts hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out. of life, but what you arc going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness—are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas!

"Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest'thing in the world— stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—and that the Blessed Life which began in Bethlehem so many years ago is the ■ image and brightness of the Eternal Love?—then you can keep Christmas! And if one day, why not always?" .