“CHRISTMAS CALLING!”

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 23 December 1933, Page 4

“CHRISTMAS CALLING!”

(Contributed) And “courage” is the message Christmas utters! To many, the past year has been something of a disheartening trek in a desert land of little work and less pay; the only increase in prosperity has bedn in the realm of taxes! Many of us know what it is to show that' form of courage which is “swift with a jest the day your heart is breaking” (and aching). Mrs Crusoe lay thinking one day about the courage of the wicked, and wishing with all her heart that the good had the same amount of courage! Too often in life are the. good also the timid; why that is so, let the psychologists enquire into! It is not lh‘e religion of the Old and New Testaments. Search where you will in both, you will find “courage'’ the keynote of all, even if it takes the form of the coalniist's boast “I will not know a wicked person; he that tellcth lies shall not tarry in my sight!” One does sometimes wish for those “good old days” of being able t osav “Off with his head!” Zeehariah, John the Baptist's father, put his linger on the message Christ brought to the world when he said, at the ceremonial naming of his son John, that God’s intention for us is “That we being delivered from our enemies, might serve him without fear,” and that message is needed this Christmas as much, or more .than ever, even in (his “God’s own • country.” It is needed, because i! we do not welcome (hat message, and exercise (lie courage il, brings, Ibis country, bv many indications, may become instead “the devil's own country.'’ There are such in (lie world. Mrs Crusoe remembers certain trenchant words about certain West Indian islands in that line (ravelbook, “At Last” by Charles Kingsley. The last, book in the Bible, is shot through and through with courage in all its manifestations. Christians have to follow One who had full measure of his feeling in His last days. “His whole life’s fight was fought in vain,” yet

who, in that last book, called on all of His to “overcome,” and you can’t overcome anything if you haven’t even the “spunk” to get up and fight it! Mrs Crusoe came to write the above because she lay thinking one morning about the hands and feet —so charming, so sweet, so perfect —of a baby! But she added to her thoughts of their apparent ‘helplessness, the thought “The most powerful feet and bands that ever came into the world!” for it was those of the Infant Christ she was thinking. “That we might serve Him without fear” those Feet and Hands came. And what message about that for us women did they bring? For us women, especially us older ones (who “know the world ft bit” and who, some of us, Know causes for fear in our own lives) what message has He, who used those Hands and Feet on earth, for us? It is wrapped up in those words of His: “Whoso doctli the will of My Father, the smne is my mother and my sister.” He grew up to he, all his youth and early manhood, the support and protector of His mother and her household. He was a member of “a conquered race”—the women of a conquered race need protectors. The Lord's hand is not shortened. His Hands and Feet are still swift in protection of women. Well does Mrs Crusoe remember a very experienced lawyer telling her in his ollice one (lay": “I have never known a girl or woman, of true faith in God, to come to grief—they have the protection of God.” The lawyer was a devout ‘Roman Catholic, and knew what he was talking about. What women might accomplish in this country if they had courage! Courage to work really “For the cause that needs assistance, For the wrong that lacks resistance, And the good that we can do!” 'Which three lines are often the motto and policy of newspapers. “Christmas calling”—to “helping in another's troubles, courage in our own.”