THE GARLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 53

THE GARLAND.

FOR THE QUIET HOUR f No. 225. By Duncan Wright, Dunedin. CHRISTMAS IS COMING! THE ANGELS' SONG. It oiimo upon the midnight clear, Tihat glorious song of old, From angels bendjng near the earth To touch their harps of gold; "Peace to the earth, goodwill to men, From heaven's all-gracious King; The world in solemn stillness lay . To hear the ■angels sing. Still through the cloven skies they come "With peaceful wings unfurled, And still celestial rnusic floats O'er all the weary world; Above its gad and lowly plains They bend on heavenly wing, And ever o'er its Babel sounds The blessed angels sing. O ye beneath life's crushing load, Whose forma are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow, Look \ip! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing ;• O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels singl • For lo! the days are hastening on By prophet-bards foretold, When with the ever-circling years Comes round the age of gold— When peace shall over all the earth Its final splendours fling, And the whole' world send back the song ~ Which now tho angels sing! CHRISTMAS. "The world keeps festival to-day. Christmas is of the ages and the universe. From .the hour when the flaming sword whirled at Eden's gate until the Bethlehem star in its silver beauty shone in the midnight sky, all time was a ladder that led to the coining of Christ. Round by round it was builded through the centuries. Sunbeams of promise illumined it. Mists of prophecy hung over it a nebulous veil. Heavenward, up its ethereal steps, climbed the feet of patriarchs and priests, of sages and seers; and beautiful women, Deborah and Miriam, Esther and Ruth, went that way into the land of peace. At last came the sacred hour of which Luke sublimely tells, when Gabriel, an angel who stood in the presence of God, went forth to a virgin of Nazareth, named Mary. In the dreams of the old painters, the angel of Annunciation—grave, stately, and majestic, bearing a lily, emblem of stainless purity—enters the humble home of the gentle maiden. Little thought the simple Jewish girl, as she went about her daily tasks, that to her was tccome the greatest honour and the deepest sorrow ever laid upon woman. For her mystical motherhood gave His human nature to the Divine Son. Sweet Mary, mother of our Lord! With no worship, yet with tenderest love, our hearts remember Thee, as on Christmas Day we gather round the Holy Child. We come, the world comes, to adore on Christmas morning, where the shepherds and the wise men came: The pastoral spirits first Approach T'hee, Babe Divine, For they in lowly thoughts are nursed, Meet for Thy lowly shrine; Sooner than they should mis 3 where Thou dost dwell, Angels from heaven will stcop to guide them to Thy cell. . The simple-minded and the childlike still have the shortest way to come. Their eyes are open to the light from heaven; they hear the songs, and angels guide _them to the cradle in the stall. The world's great and mighty ones still find the path to Christ longer and stranger; but the star goes before them too. It stops, in 'its radiant clearness, over the place where the Young Child lies. By what road soever, of mountain or plain, wise or simple have travelled, alike they find full content only when, in the rest of faith, they kneel before the Incarnate Love. For them, through the frosty Christmas air of 1875, as for shepherds and magi so long ago : The star rains its fire, While the> beautiful sing, In the manger of Bethlehem, Jesus is King! "We crown Him King once more, as we think of His precious name, Emmanuel— God with us. We deny ourselves that we may send money, and clothes, and food to starving strangers, and we think our common humanity moves us. . We pay our money to educate boys and girls who have no claim upon us, to upbuild burned cities, to aid towns laid waste by plague or fever; we do small deeds of unselfishness, hardly knowing that we do them; we read every day of the heroism and self-sacrifice of plain, obscure men and women, and we plume ourselves on the latent goodness in the human heart. Some of us do not know it. But it all comes from Christ. His Spirit has interpenetrated the fibres of the heart, and everywhere nations and individuals are better and nobler because He took on Him our flesh.

"It is very fitting that the Christmas joy should be childhood's joy. It is the children's day. Jesus loved children. So in our homes and in our Sunday schools we garland the evergreen, and wreathe the flower, and hang our banners bright and gay. Mothers stuff the little stockings that hang by the chimney-piece, on Christmas Eve. with many a tender glance at golden head and chubby cheek. Fathers —stiff, dignified men of business, lawyers,- doctors, ministers, and what not —have been playing Santa Claus for the last month. Eespectable houses have been as full of plots and counter-plots as the dens of conspirators. The air is electric with whispers of secrecy and mysterious portents. Crabbed and crusty is tho heart that, under its tough rind of cynicism, feels no gladness at the children's joy. But you have no children? Other people have. There are newsboys and match-girls, orphans and

worse, forlorn little waifs of shame, the estrays of a great city. Christmas has a voice for them too. Christ loves them too. 0, gather them into some wide shelter where they sing :

We'll not shut the door on one of His poor, Though you bring every child in the city. "If there be a single homeless wanderer, man or woman, whom Christmas finds with head bare to the bitter blast, you must help such a one for Christ's sake. Nor let a spasm ' of Christmas charity satisfy you, or a folly of indolent giving add to your own joy. Visit the poor, and help them intelligently the winter through, if you love the Lord. Forgive your offending brother on Christmas. In a general way, we all subscribe to the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. Only our own particular shoe pinches too tightly. Our own special injury and insult is quite too great to be pardoned. We let the rust of hate eat into the tissues of our hearts, or we build walls of ice between the estranged friend and ourselves. Let Christmas melt the ice. Let it como to us like the Gulf Stream, warm from the tropics. "Christmas bells! Hear them chime. Merry bells ! Hearty bells. Bells of cheer. Don't you hear, beating through them, the melody of a glad refrain : 'Trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength' ? Trust Him in hard times. Trust Him in rough weather. The angels are near, the Star is shining, and Christ is born in Bethlehem." .CHRISTMAS NIGHT. . . (By Augustus Watters.) 'Twas in the merry sleighing time, when Santa Claus had come, And the holly and the mistletoe seemed glistening with fun, ' When the ice-ponds and the window-panes reflect the sunset glow, And pines and cedars grimly stand like pilgrims in the snow. A ,tiny merchant wanderer, who was known as Little Jim, Went struggling through the snow-drifts to roach the village inn. v The silent stars looked wistfully through winter's gloomy air, And distant farmhouse windows oft poured a ruddy glare. In vain poor Jimmy struggled,—his feet were •chilled and numbed, And falling headlong in the drift, his weary heart succumbed. "Alas!" he sighed, "and must I die on merry Christmas night?" Then straight upon his eyes there came a flood of rosy light. Abov& the fleecy pillow, where sank his weary head, A mighty hemlock, draped with snow, its arm majestic spread. E'en like some brooding mother a love-thrill seemed to flow From all -its drooping branches to the dying boy below. And sadder, sweeter music than ever pinetree sung Through all its dim recesses in strains ecstatic rung. And still the light grew brighter, and in the stainless snow The fairest pinks and roses in fragrant clusters grow. All darlings .of the summer hi radiant groups arise, And breathe their airs nectareous above the sleeper's, eyes. And happy vines go clambering above the hemlock's sheen, And interlace its snowy hood with stripes of living green. And now, amid the shimmering leaves, .unnumbered birds appear, With flaming wings, and golden crests, and wood-notes sweet and clear; No wizard's cave, no coral grot, such charms as these could spread. No couch of earthly king so grand as Jimmy's Christmas bed! In sooth, it was a womdrcus sight to see the lilies bloom Beneath the hemlock's shaggy robe and the cedar's mystic gloom. All bright and gladsome whiter sprites now join with summer elves, And nodding boughs and flying drifts grow sportive as themselves. But hark! the solemn, trembling bell proclaims the midnight hour, When elves and goblins, sprites and fay, must rendar up their power. Like lightning all the flowers shrink, the warblers cease to trill, And naught but grim arid shivering trees are seen upon the hill! When sunrise kissed the snow fields along the country ways, • And smoking teams went prancing before the heavy sleighs, An, awe-struck group of farmers drew up beside a mound Beneath a mighty hemlock well-knew-r; for miles around. The place was called the Witch s Tryst, and wondrous things were told Of gatherings here on stormy nights m fabled . "days of old. A little ; smiling face was seen beneath tlie fleecy drift, And hands stretched forth, as if to grasp, some radiant Christmas gift. And well those stalwart men surnused they need not grieve for Jim, For surely heaven ope'd last night and angels took him in! NO ROOM IN THE INN. (By the Rev. Walter Thompson.) "St. Luke tells us, "There was no room for them in the inn, so they laid Him in a manger.' "We would imagine from the use of the word 'inn' that the house corresponded to our modern hotels. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let me tell you of an inn. or khau, I saw near the Lake of Galilee. As they were, and are, all alike, this one will describe the one in which the infant Christ was born. "This khau is a good specimen of these hotels of the East. Entering by an arched doorway, some 15 feet high, we found ourselves in a square enclosure. In thfe open court the cattle stand in fair weather, or are protected by a covered roof placed against one of the walls of the khau. The other three sides are appropriated for the uses of the traveller, and are disposed of in a manner adapted to his primitive wants. The paved floor of the recess is raised several feet above the level of the outer court. There are several such recesses in the khau, and at night they are frequently all occupied. In that event the unfortunate traveller must make his bed in the outer court, and pass the night in the near neighbourhood of camels, mules, cows, and horses. Of course, there is no furniture. Each person brings his own carpet or matting, and such articles cf

food as he may deem necessary to hi» wants. In one of these apartments I found a straw matting, oil, and farm implements; in another, chickens and cows; m still another, two Bedouin women were breaking bread for the noonday meal. Onr could not imagine a more urinative baking process than that employed by these Bedouin women. A few sticks of wood were placed upon the stone floor; upon these in turn was put a flat piece of rounded iron; and then upon thi* smooth surface was spread the dough already prepared. This khan is one of the most celebrated of Galilee., for here the Bedouins assemble on their journeys from plain to plain, seeking pasturage for their cattle. "There is but one story, and the whole place is open for the use of the wayfarer. The door always stands open, offering a welcome to all who desire its shelter. In the East to build a khau is regarded as an act of devotion to God's service, just as with us the building of a church shows a zeal in the service of God. "I have ridden miles without seeing any other building than these reception houses, placed beside some fountain of pure water. In such a place as this the Lord was born —born under the humblest circumstances. He was laid in the stable, in the manger of a village khau. The ox' and the ass, its fitting occupants, beheld the advent of the' Son of Almighty God. The khau was full, crowded to completion—let this Galilean carpenter seek the shelter of the stable; let this nativity take place' in the rockhewn abode of cattle; let the Christ, the Anointed One, lie in the lowly manger." SANTA GLAUS IN TROUBLE. (By Mary Wiley.) How much I've wondered, And) o'er tlio problem) pondered. While busy with my toys— If I should once grow sick or miinb, What ever could or would bscomo Of all the gh»3 and boys! Without a Christmas they can't live, So Santa Claus must work and give; But, oh, my labour's ponderous! My wares, to gratify and please, To give youth joy, "and parents ease, Must be both goo-d and wondroue. Rushing flood and wildest panic, Which atartle banker and mechanic*, ' Dare never make me quail; ■_ For not a girl nor any boys Could) hold esteem for Santa Claus, If onoß his funds ehould fail. But I am growing old. my dears, And cares increasing with the years That multiply so fast. When I was young I took my ease, The children few nor hard to please, How different was the past! I'm busy now both day and night, I plan and work with all my might, From on© year to another: I've journeymen and '.prentice, too, A helpful and industrious crew, Who work liko bees together. I've many shops in'every land), Where busy head and *busy hand Fashion toye and fabrics rare; I've ship? in sail on every, sea, That bri- : 'he precious goods to me, Through all weather, foul or fair. On Christmas Eve I'd ne'er get through, But for tho help of an extra crew, Who work with heart and hand; Some on teams with coal and with wood, Others on foot with baskets of food, Hurry along over the land. They hunt up -this needy and starving poor, Whom I, in my haste from dioor -to door, By chance may overlook; Making no noise for the world to hear, They throw in a smile and a word cf cheer, With there a toy and there a book. And of such help I, need much more, A fact I've hinted oft before In sermon, prayer, and book; And here announce my need again, As I, with worried thought, and pain, j Survey the grim outlook Of thousands with no laid-up stores, ::• O cruel faifce! as near their doors The wolf of hunger d.raws. Then help me. all ye wise and good, And endless, boundless gratitude Is yours, from Santa Claus.