THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19981, 24 December 1926, Page 5

THE SUNDAY CIRCLE.

RELIGIOUS READING FOR THE HOME. A CHRISTMAS PRAYER. Loving stares the large-eyed cow, Loving stares the long-cared ass. At Heaven’s glory in the grass! Child, with added human birth. Come to bring the child of earth Glad repentance, tearful mirth, And a seat beside the hearth, At the Father’s knee— Make us peaceful as Thy cow; Make us patient as Thine ass; Make us quiet as Thou art now; Make us strong as Thou wilt be. Make us always know and sec AVc are His, as well as Thou. George MacDonald. A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

1863. If yc would hear the angels sing “Peace on earth and mercy mild,” Think of Him Who was once a cihld On Christmas Day in the morning. If ye would hear the angels sing, Christians! sec yc let each door Stand wider than ever it stood before On Christmas Day in the morning. Rise, and open wide the door; Christians, rise! the world is wide, And many there be that stand outside, Yet Christmas comes in the morning. If ye would hear the angels sing, Rise and spread your Christmas fare; 'Tis merrier still the more that share. On Christmas Day in the morning. Rise, and bake your Christmas bread; Christians, arise! the world is bare And bleak, and dark with want and care, Yet Christmas comes in the morning. If ve would hear the angels sing. Rise and light your Christmas fire; And see that ye pile the logs still higher, On Christmas Day in the morning. Rise, and light your Christmas fire: Christians, rise; the world is old. And Time is weary, and worn, and cold, Yet Christmas comes in the morning. If ye would hear the angels sing, Rise and spice your wassail-bowl, With warmth for body, and heart, and. soul, ✓ On Christmas Day in the morning. - Spice it warm, and spice it strong, Christians, rise! the world is grey, And rough is the road, and short is the day, . , Yet Christmas comes in the morning. If ye would hear the angels sing, ' Chritians! think on Him Who died; Think of your Lord, the Crucified, On Christmas Day in the morning. Dora Grcenwell.

CAN YOU KEEP CHRISTMAS? Are you willing to forget what yov have done for other people, and to re member what other people have lone for you; to ignore what the world twef you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the back ground and your duties in the middle dis tance, and your chances to do a little .more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the Universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of Uappinvss—are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas. Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough to bear in mind the things that other people have 1.0 bear on ~ their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really ■want without waiting for them to tell you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings with the gate open; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you—are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas. Are you willing to believe that love is the stron~est thing in the worldstronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death —and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem 1900 yoai ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal L vo? Then you Keep Christmas. And if you keep it for a day, why not always? But you can never keep it alone. —H. van Dyke. CHRISTMAS. If all the bells of Christmas Should ring in one wild chime They could not tell thy joy, O World, At this exultant time. And if the hosts of heaven And all the sons of earth Cried jubilantly in one voice The news of Jesus’ birth. Their peans could not e\-en then Reveal the smallest part Of the swift joy that hidden lies In one thrice-humble heart. Strange that one simple story Should rush across the years, And blind us with its glory

LONG AGO AT CHRISTMAS. For many hundreds of years Christmas has been a great central institution, especially among English-speaking and kindred peoples. Long before even the coming of Christ, the Celtic and Germanic tribes held the time of the winter solstice i n great veneration, and the Norsemen believed that their deities were specially active and interested in the concerns of men during that season. Just when Christmas as a great Christian festival began to be regularly celebrated we cannot be sure, but it was very early in the Christian era. It is probably because into that first Christian celebration, so far as our far-off ancestors were concerned there entered some of the thoughts and feelings and ideas if their earlier pagan days that this institution has meant so much to their children through all these centuries. The pagan elements entering into the great Christian festival have in no sense militated against its popularity, as apparently they have not spoiled it in any other way. Very many changes in the customs connected with Christians and in the methods of celebrating it have taken place since our fathers and mothers began celebrating it in the British Isles so many centuries ago. Some things have gone, perhaps, that it might have been better to have kept, but some of the changes have no doubt been improvements. But two central features of the celebration have persisted throughout many years and are still manifestly present. It has been, and is, more or less of a religious institution and in a very peculiar and emphatic way it has centred and still centres about the home. And how much 'of health and wholesomencss have resulted in our life through these facts it would be quite impossible to say. Whatever may become of Christmas in the days to come, we ought to see that it docs not lose these outstanding features. We are not sure that we wish Christmas to become more of a Church festival than it has been. In other lands and at other times it w r as much more this than it is with us to-day. We have no special antipathy to great Church days, but this great festival of the home, with its touch and tinge of a simple and genuine religious faith and feeling, is a thing that we must not let die out arid disappear, for it is a too precious and sacred possession. Among all the great heritages that have come to us from the great past nothing is much more unique and significant than this one. There may be certain tendencies in its celebration that are not wholesome. Shall we not resist them and i do our utmost to keep it the same whole- | some and happy and homely thing that it i has been so long.