MOTHERS' NIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 151, 23 December 1921, Page 13

MOTHERS' NIGHT

MEANING OF 25TH DECEMBER THE MIRACLE "OF BIRTH. Comsby Dawson had a charming little essay on Christmas in an American paper on "Mothers' NigHt" as he calls it. In what land can Christmas be found, if not in the land of books? he asks. For Christmas is not something which comes to us; it is something to which we go in our imagination. It is not like the magio wood in "Dear Brutus," which springs up from nowhere on a given night and wanders the oountryside, bringing the boon of the second chance to such as stray into its faery thickets. Christmas'is not a date underscored on a oalendar. It is not altogether the birthday of Christ.

It commemorates the laoredness more earthly and kindred to our experience. Long before they had heard of Bethlehem the .wolf men of Britain were wont to set apart the 25th of December as * holy day; they called it the feast.of 'Mothers' Night.' For what is it that we celebrate? Not Joseph; not the heavenly, host; not the shepherds; not the wise men,, bearing their lordly presents. All these are no more than happy incentives to our emotion. We celebrate something which tho,first happened outside of Eden, and whioh will go on happening' as_ long as man keeps pace with time—the.jeopardy, mystery, and blessedness of motherhood. It is the long voyage the human j race has made at the expense of its women's travail that we remember. We see women's bodies, like little white boats, sailing daringly out from1 the remotest past, tossed onward through the surge of j, all the ages: The fleet is so great that [all, save those nearest, have lost their indentities. Some founder in the attempt to accomplish their purpose, but always there are others who.survive to hand on the spark of life till we reach this present' point of time which we enjoy through J the saorifioe of bur forgotten mothers. |So in celebrating Christmas it is Mary, the symbol of human motherhood, who fills our minds. Stars stood still to do her reverenoe in her hour of crisis.: The heavens rustled' with sweet concern of angels. Shepherds ] left their \ woolly flocks and kings came I riding through the wintry night to pay her homage. In 'accepting these legends [We do not strain our credulity. On the

contrary,, we mildly marvel that they do not recur every #me that the miracle of' birth ia rewrought. , , There is surely something shabby about the furtive silence with which most of us are permitted to shuffle into life. And yet the record 'of these abnormal happenings is relatively unimportant; it no more than affords a setting for a scene a thousand-fold more/magic—tho pioture of a young girl transfigured with gentleness by the slow'realisation of her accomplished motherhood. It is a sight which has occurred every, day, in every age, in every clime. For.^he sheer oommonplaceness of its drama it has only death for a rival. Artists have tried-to capture its fleeting holiness; they have all.in their degree failed, all save this young, mother of long ago; who, by giving-'birth to a, Christ and by being compelled' to cradle Him in a manger because of the avarice of a nameless innkeeper, has typified in herself the tragio price of the joy 'of -every mother ; and has engraved it for ever on'the world's imagination. It is Mary's pain, Mary's loneliness, and Mary's ecstaoy that we commemorate, and through her pain, the loneliness and the ecstacy of all mothers. We call it Christmas Day, / but it is still the feast of Mothers' Night, which we fittingly celebrate by an effort to bring happiness to ollildren. '_ . What an ingenuity of kindness, spread over the countlee6 generations, has been at work to-make that happiness secure! Who was" it that first . invented Santa Claus, with, his reindeer? And who the hanging up of stockings? And who the Yule-log? And who the use of holly? And who the privilege that mistletoe confers on unaccepted lovers? What minstrels were the first to wade knee-deep in snow, that they might emulate the heavenly choir of angels?