THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1906. CHRISTMAS, 1906.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13368, 24 December 1906, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1906. CHRISTMAS, 1906.

| It may be that this Christmastide | of 1906 is but an example of a long I run of Christmastidcs which will : come and go over a prosperous New j Zealand and a self-satisfied people. j But it may also be that we shall look 1 back upon itfrom troubled and j tempestuous years which it may j usher inas a breathing space in our ] national life for which we ought to have been devoutly thankful, the I true meaning of which we did not adequately realise at the time. Not greater is the change from the bleak Winter of the North to. the gay Summer of the South than the change from the doubtful struggle for life in the Old Home to the assured expectation of sufficiency in New ZeaI land. Christmas does not come to j us, as it came to our forefathers, in j the midst of ice and snow and sleet and stormy weather. The Christmas sun does not dawn, here, upon trees long stripped , of their leaves, and upon flower and fruit become but memories, and upon the short and chilly days that feebly mark time between the long and "darksome nights. Nor do we have, in our land, [ the cry of children wailing from I cold and hunger, the weeping of women who perish for lack of food, the groaning of despairing men who look for work and wages and cannot find them. With us Christmas comes in the summer and with summer at its best; with nights hardly long enough for sleep and with days whose length is all too short for the pleasures that we seek. For the flocks whiten upon our hills—and the merchants seek our wool afar. Through all our pastures the cattle graze in peace and ships load in our harbours with butter and with meat. The very swamps yield their flax to our settlers, and from the seeming wilderness our gumdiggers win yearly a king's ransom. From the bowels of the earth our miners bring coal and gold, and upon the seas our mariners carry to market timber that has been preparing for them these 5000 years. And upon this wonderful New South ; upon the long, lone islands set in the chameleon seas that now are blue with the holidayblue of Italy, and again are graygreen and sombre as are the distant seas which first cradled sailor-men ; upon the dark green of the unbroken forest, and upon the light green of : the encroaching fields, and upon the 1 yellow patches that . tell of the haymaking, and upon the brown background that proclaims the plough ; upon homestead and timber camp and mining field and thriving town; upon them all the Christmas- ! tide sun is shiaiog. And, every-

where, there is food to eat and gold to spend and gladness in living. And, perhaps, our hearts harden within us and we may not feel as grateful: to the Giver as we do for smaller mercies at more troubled Christmas* tides. : ■ ,r Sorrow there is in New Zealand, of course, as there must ever be while mankind is mortal, and while the body shrinks from pain and love rebels against death. And a certain amount of want there also is as there must ever be as long as the accidents of life are not universally covered, and as long as the worthless and incapable are allowed to muddle along as best they can. But neither at Christmas nor at any other time can want go unrelieved in a community such as this, and oven at Christmas we cannot all .indulge in the exercise of chanty as is possible in the old lands whoso conditions the most charitable would be the last to wish to reproduce. It would be sheer hypocrisy to suggest that the conditions which induce wretchedness and misery, with all the horrible degradation which accompanies those states of life, are in any Way to be desired, and are not to be most strenuously fought against. But it does seem I as though the absence of those condi- ; tions in our immediate neighbourhood, and in our own times, makes men forget the lessons that those conditions warningly preach, and ini duces men to assume unconsciously I that mere material gain is all that | there is in life worth seeking. When Life asks no sacrifice of us we soon begin to forget that only by constant readiness to sacrifice is Life made human, and human society made posi sible. We soon begin to fancy that | somehow or other Life owes us a "good time," that somehow or other ! the world owes us an easy living, and ! that we may safely base our personal ; and national conduct upon that as- ; sumption. Then Life seems naturally one long summer time, with magnificent seasons punctuating it, and high prices colouring the red letters of its calendar. And we forget not only the constant need for effort in human life, but forget the I varying opportunities and chances which may exalt the humble and pull ! down the mignty from their seats, a ' remembrance which makes us timid I in self-conceit and fills us with true charity to the unfortunate and unsuccessful. Yet if we have the divine gift of imagination—which is among I the qualities that separate the human | from the brutal there is no time when we should be less materialminded and less boastful of wealth and less heedful of ease and comfort for ourselves than at Christmas. For does it not toll, even more than 1 Good Friday, of the Great Sacrifice when poverty and hardship and suffering were freely taken up for the good of men? Which should teach us, if we would be taught, that there is something more than the making of butter and something higher than the breeding of sheep and riches, which cannot be graded like flax, or valued like gum in gold. These material things are good— their place. That we should all have enough to eat and to. drink and to wear, with a, pound or two to spend or to save or to give away, is not to Be ques-i tioned and cannot be bad. But if we place mere worldly wealth above everything else and conceive of the gratifying o£ the senses as the onlything worth living for, then our very energies begin to fade within us, and 'the things which we have sought perish within our grasp. For no nation was ever strong without an ideal, and no country ever lasted whose people said: " Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Those have been strong and lasted who accepted Life as a trust and saw in Hardship the designed test of endurance, and in Prosperity a still more subtle trial of worth and merit. This view of Prosperity must have occurred to many of our readers as year after year we tell the tale of unbroken good fortune, and they hear the common acceptance of the belief that the fat kino are immortal. Yet it is only those whom ease softens and comfort degenerates who need fear Prosperity. Those who are as ready to face the worst as they are to enjoy the best can look with undaunted faith into the Future, and whatever may be to happen in 1907 can wish each other now: "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New ! Year." \