Mangonui County Times AND NORTHERN REPRESENTATIVE. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1904. The Season’s Greetings.

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 19, 20 December 1904, Page 2

Mangonui County Times AND NORTHERN REPRESENTATIVE.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1904. The Season’s Greetings.

4 ‘ What right, what true, what fit we justly call, Let this be all iny care—for this is all.” —Pore.

Without doubt, Christinas carries our thoughts back a long way. Crowds of old memories throng around us at this time of the year, and, strange to say, many of them, amid all the mirth and jollity of the festive season, are sombre—the memories of departed friends, vanished hopes, disappointed years. And yet the very shadows tell of sunshine, for we cannot have the one without the other, and the sunshine, somehow, always disperses the clouds at Christmas. Whate’er our circumstances, however lowly our lot, in all Christian lands at this season, to' young and old come the oft-repeated words of cheer apd kindliness, the sweet peculiar joy bi'Christmas time. And the sentiment is the same here as in wintry Europe. It is a time of Christian gladness, of peace-making, of mutual goodwill and kindly deeds and recollections of kindred and friends. So that both custom and inclination would forbid us to choose any subject for this leader other than “ The Season’s Greetings.” They are sontething more than idle conventional chatter, for behind all our festivities, behind all our holidays, behind our finery, and our picnics, there is the living, breathing principle of Christianity and humanitarianism. As this issue reaches the hands of our readers, millions of people of all races, and living in all climes, will be thinking of that first Christmas when the men beheld the infant Nazarene in the lowly shepherd’s hut. And through all the ages that great religion has grown, and growing it has elevated mankind, for does it not .teach to us that we should do unto others as we would have them do to us ? There is, especially in small communities, too much of littleness, too much spite and too much eliquism. All this is absolutely unchristian, and no amount of argument can make it otherwise. This is pre-eminently the season in which forgiveness should be asked of those we have wronged and slighted in the year which has passed. And we all have done these things, and those who steel their hearts against the promptings suggested by the season, are shutting out all that is good and all that is best in that religion, the birth of which we celebrate at Christmastide. And through the coming year we wash our readers all good luck, we wish them all prosperity, and may it he for us all “A happy Christmas and a bright New Year.”