MERRY CHRISTMAS. Begone, Dull Care!

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 77, 21 December 1901, Page 8

MERRY CHRISTMAS. Begone, Dull Care!

THE an is resonant with reminders of Christmas, and at every fresh turn m the beaten track ot Life the near proximity of the great holiday oasis comes home to us plodding travellers in the desert of business. There are the joyful sounds of teachers and scholars breakmg-up. Crowds of youngsters, liberated from the restraints of school routine, are invading the streets and pouring into shops to get rid of the money which is fast burning such big holes in their pockets The shopkeepers, on their part, are overhauling their stores, and making gay their windows and shop-fionts with all sorts of goods to tempt the fancy, tickle the palate, and loosen the purse-strings • » ♦ Civil servants, of both high and low degree, are eagerly waiting the word to issue forth from the official quarters and scatter m quest of enjoyment Family parties are locking up houses, and hiving off m gay spirits to sea-side resorts and rural solitudes Country cousins are streaming into town in detachments and companies and battalions, filling up the hotels and the lodging houses, and thronging the pavements with eager faces merely intent upon sightseeing • • * Some of the staple products of New Zealand may be precious low m the world's markets just now. Wiseacres may tell us the loss of the Australian market is a misfortune of the largest size People learned m the lore of statistics, and who are for ever on the look-out for foul weather, may assure us we are not nearly so well off as we ought to be, and that heavy squalls are threatening. What matter ? It makes not the slightest difference to the holiday spirit of the season Our staples will rise again Other markets we shall find for om goods Storms and squalls have beset us before now, and we have come through them scatheless and toughened • « • It is Christmas once again ' Fling care to the winds, cast down pen and pick, hammer and spade, and all the thousand and one implements of trade, and hie away, with wife and youngsters, or with merry comrades, or the object of love's young dream, to seek that surcease from toil, and that balm for trouble, which the sunny skies, the glancing waters, the smiling meads, the secluded bush so generously provide • • • In life's dull march ifc is good to bivouac now and then, and get ba«k

as neai as we can to the hank and caiclcss jollity of childhood It icfreshes the jaded spuits sweetens the tempei, and tones up the body foi the rigors of tiavel that hednectly ahead It is pleasant to pause awhile in the mad chase aftei the almighty dollar, to dally by the way, and forget that on the morrow we shall be engaged m the hunt once moic At the same time, let us not be selfish m our enjoyment. The season inculcates the great lesson of brotherly love, and brings home to each one of us the tender and hallowing appeals of chanty Just beneath the suiface of oui civic life lies much suffering that we can help to soften and alleviate Theie are biave hearts staggering under buidens that crush them to the eaith Theie aie pooi widows struggling hard to earn a mean subsistence for themselves and then helpless little children There aie the friendless poor, who are laid aside by sickness and plunged in dejection for want of a little human sympathy Let the sunshine of Christmas gaiety, and the men-mess and jollity of Christmas cheer, penetrate their weary lives, and dispel the gloom of their sad surroundings, making glad their hearts for a while In the hope that the poor and the afflicted may not be forgotten while the rest of the community aie making holiday, we wish our leaders one and all A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year