The Press Saturday, December 23, 1922. Christmas.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17645, 23 December 1922, Page 12

The Press Saturday, December 23, 1922. Christmas.

Irtfc still hath one nonianco that naught can. bury— Not, Time himself, -vTao ooffius hfo» romances—' . , For still will Christens gild th® yeai b miwlwicea, If childhood comes, as here, to malto him jnwry, Tho paet'ts linos are as true as wheji they were written. Christmas still brings its never-failing romance to brighten, a world that tends to become" more prosaic as it grows older, and to make Hfl forget the troubles, past and present, that the year has brought us. There are few whom it does not, for & little while, lift out of the common round; fewor still to whom it does not give some increase of happiness ,oi', at the worst, some forget fulness of cares. It is the season of charity aild goodwill, sanctified by the usages and tradition of immemorial years, when hearts grow warmer, and on© has glimpses of ai golden ago in which all men shall be brothers. • Last Christmas dawned more brightly than, any that hwl gladdened the world for many years. Compacts between the great nations seemed! to place the pqssibilitv of a recurrence of ww beyond all fears, an3,tl» o treaty with Ireland had; healed a wound that had troubled the British race for centuries. All the high hopes with which, a yaar ago, w© looked .into the future have yet to be realised. War, which apparently had been removed to an immeasurable distance from the present generation, has proved to be, on mpt» than on® occasion, an imminent danger, and Ireland merely exchanged a state of civil wax with England for one of internal rebellion, and fratricidal strife. The burden cast upon the nations by the. Great-War still hampers industry, and causes widespread l misery. And yet we oanlift up our hearte in glad recognition of the approach of happier times. The effortsof thcee who are working for the permanent peace of the world ax© not 1 resultlcss, as they sometimes seem; little by little they make headway, helped by the general realisation that only with peace will ooroe prosperity. Here in New Zealand we await the return of better days with ooofidenoe born of the knowledge that the clouda have already broken. We have passed through trying times, but they have never been so bad as other peoples fyave experienced, and all the tfjpens will have proved fallacious if the coming year is not brighter than the past. Christmas 18 here to "gild the " year's mischances," and childhood is all around us "to mako him merry." Not all of us realise how much the oelebration of Christmas owes to the. children, npr are willing to admit that for qs much of the season's joyfulness comes from our efforts to re-croas the bygone years and become children onoo again, at least to the extent of sharing childhood's pleasures and merrymaking. The one. duty that rests upon all at this season is to see that none ore' left outside the circle of its beneficent' influence, that some portion of the Christmas gladness enters into the lives of the saddest. Opportunities for making people happier present themselves at every turn, and Christmas will be illspent unless some advantage is taken of them.