The Best Christmas Gift

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 11

The Best Christmas Gift

fHAT is the greatest need of the nations • to-day * the most acceptable Christmas gift to a tired and nervy world? It is peace. At this moment a large number of august gentlemen of many nations and varied interests are sitting around tables in Washington—a representative of New Zealand among them. They are ostensibly animated by one spirit and engaged upon a common task, the end of which is peace. They are assumed to be anxious to secure peace to. a war-wearied world, if not in perpetuity then for a very long time. . Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, and Welshmen, all true men of the British Empire, are: likewise inspired by 'a common hope,, and working each according to his light towards some end, with special reference to peace. . • Look where one will, the whole world seems as if it is like some irritable, over-wrought man suffering from high-tension, and. longing for peace. But it is not quite sure, even now, that after all tlie terribly ruinous years of war anything like an enduring peace is in sight. The anxious nations resemble Noah awaiting the return of the dove. They know, only too well, some of them, that no treaty ever made is unbreakable. To be beneficial,, to have its provisions observed in letter and in spirit, it must be interpreted' in the Christmas spirit of goodwill toward men. It is not signatures, sealing v _x, or china ribbon that makes treaties binding, but sincere and honest effort jproceeding from a' good heart. Peace to be lasting must be welcomed with hei. sister Goodwill. . The year now closing is but one of a highly evenitful series since 1914, every one of which might be termed annus mirabilis, ils Dryden described his 1666 A.D. . We.have come.to look for a new sensation with our breakfasts, and when none is provided, to expect it in the evening, and,, if not then, to wonder why our chroniclers have failed to provide us with ouj? daily thrill. It is no wonder that our nerves have become strained, ovex-tense: But peace is obtainable this year, as of yore, through the right understanding by men, as well as nations, of the spirit of that Song of the Angels, first heard some 192 1 years ago. It is for every person, as for every nation, to make this "a real oldfashioned Christmas," in the expression of joy for the passing of many troubled years and the hope for the brighter years to come. Never in its history has the world been more in need of the practical application b y every class and creed, every nation.and individual, of "Peace on earth and goodwill toward men."