The Southern Cross. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. INVERCARGILL, SATURDAY, DEC. 22 Xmas.

Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 35, 22 December 1900, Page 8

The Southern Cross. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. INVERCARGILL, SATURDAY, DEC. 22 Xmas.

One of Dickens’s creations, Mr Jerry Cruncher, had strong 1 objections to his wife’s “ flopping,” and as for meditating,” to his. mind she ‘ might as well flop as meditate.” Notwithstanding Jerry’s strong opposition, we have been meditating ; and the burden of the meditation has been the wonderful hold tbe celebration of Christmas has over the civilised world, and more especially over English-speaking people. With us Christmas is a national institution, and forms a wonderful bond, a strong connecting link with those who are severed from friends by many thousand miles of sea. It is like a silken cord stretching from colony to colony, from Mother a d to furthest possession, so that the Xmas greeting and the little gift moves the wander to tenderer thoughts of home, alike in frozen Klondyke, on the burning veldt of Africa, or in these colonies of more equable climate. Many a link which, for a whole year, has been dropped in the family chain, will this coming week be picked up by the greeting of peace and goodwill, sent from one to the other in distant places for “ old sake’s sake.” Few are so utterly destitute of friends, or so lonely in heart, but will receive and remit .some little token of good feeling, just because ’tis Christmas. As The Marseillaise,” played by his favourite regimental band, moves the Frenchman so that he flings his cap in the air and cries “ Vive la France ,” and the National Anthem, well sung, stirs an Englishman’s blood till he involuntarily exclaims

“God bless ber!” so this season of peace, friendship and good fellowship moves the honest heart into thoughts tender and kind to his fellows, especially to the absent and the needy. It is the cheapest and falsest of cheap sneers for the cynic (who seems incapable of enjoying even Xmas) to say that Dickens made the English Christmas. The honest British heart made the English Christmas, and Dickens interpreted for us what he saw, but what all felt. Old Scrooge lived long before Dickens, arid lives among us yet, and gets moved by some good spirit, so that even his cold blood warms to the under-paid clerk, and many a forgotten service, and badly paid labor makes itself felt at this season, and the Xmas goose is forthcoming to cheer the family that never before blest the unlovely name of Scrooge. We have no ice in the gutter for the poor clerk to ]oin with the boys in a slide on his way home from the office, “just because ’tis Xmas Eve,” nor is there any need for him to pull his woollen muffler tighter round his chin to keep out the cold ; but who is so blind that as he walks our streets cannot see the very same man under the Southern Cross, in the hardworked, struggling father, who has saved to buy the little Christmas gifts which will give joy to the many children at home. This is the feature of Chrivstmas which speaks well for our colonial homes. The children are in all our thoughts, and as we see the late trains crowded with happy purchasers, who keep as a profound secret till next day the contents of many a package, we feel we need not recur to the “ good old times” for good-hearted people, for this, the last Christmas of the century, will lend its testimony to the kind-heartedness of our countrymen.

Peace and goodwill is writ large on every countenance. The most morose man draws himself from the corner of the railway carriage, and for once in the year forgets he possesses a liver and chats with the stranger on the old-time Christmas, as though he were never bilious in his life. Thus friend meets fiiend, and wherever we turn we still hear the same kind wmds ringing out —“A Happy Xmas !” •

But we do not forget those who cannot participate in our joy; the Divine meaning of the day, and its mission of love, shine forth in many an obscure corner. The sufferer in our hospitals is remembered ; the good Samaritan pours in the oil of kindness andcomfort. The widowed heart of the soldier’s wife which seems moie widowed in the joy of every other woman’s love, hugs closer to her breast that seal of wifehood —all she possesses of him who at the last Christmas said, “ Till death us do part,” and her heart goes out in gratitude as friends drop in to cheer her loneliness and leave their little tokens of goodwill. The family wrecked by bitter strife is made happy in that one has remembered the meaning ot Christmas, and come and made his peace, so that they who have tasted the gall of bitterness, now join hands and sing “ For Auld Lang Syne,” while in smile and tear, a deeper family love is cemented, which trivial irritations will never sunder.

Even in places we associate with sorrow, in asylums and orphan homes, this is a season of joy,' and to the children it,means plum-pudding’ and a Xmas tree, or as the urchin at Stoekwell orphanage put it, “ helpings of beef and ten of pudding, while in many a home friends old and tried will gather and, remembering the days that are gone, and the years that have since first they met, will spend" many happy hours together. Life worth living P Qf course it is, and never more so than now. Thus believing, we can heartily wish every reader in town and country, young and old— A. Yery Happy Christmas.