The Daily News. THURSDAY, DEC. 24, 1903. CHRISTMAS MEMORIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLV, Issue 265, 24 December 1903, Page 2

The Daily News. THURSDAY, DEC. 24, 1903. CHRISTMAS MEMORIES.

Each man, says an old writer. Is a part of all that ho has seen and al] that is around Mm. We have proof of this in the fact that more or less strongly each of our countrymen has certain hereditary sensations as to this blest land and empire of ours. There are a thousand associations that blend together tjo make, Don instance, what one knows as a Sunday feeling, which never qiuita leaves 'is if we have once had it. To begin with, there are the clean clothes and better clothes for children ; there are the extr tt leisure and the sense of hav ; ing little to do ; there Is the gathering, with greetings, at church and chapel in town and village ; there is to the children the Sunday dinner ; and there are. it is hoped, prayers together, quiet, sincere and unaffected, which make the day sweetly and gently memorable to be recalled in after days when perhaps our lives have tost t'htot "Sabbath stillness." Other days, again, beside Sunday, moke their .nark. Each has its own particular significance to ms, amid so the -days ran by, like thp sands in the hour glass of Time, until our sand is run out. And as days havo their character, so have the weeks. Certain weeks are set out by the Church with pious recollections ; and in the year at large the seasons take them up and mark out their period. Thoste people from, the OM Home Land may perhaps remember how much more marked the seasons appeared in the days o!' iimr youth ; but most pronounced and memorable of all seasons, whether under the gray, snowladen clouds of England's winter or the azure of our own glorious summer skies, from its old and its joyous associations, is Christmas. Of course, it cannot be denied that there a»e people who never rejoice, men whosfl thermometers never rise, who "carry their own low temperature about with them—who ice their feelinlg'si ilh 'the c\og clafys anld do' not thaw them one degree at Christmas." " I have always thought of Christmas timo," says Dickens, t' apart from the veneration due to

its sacred namt. and origin—if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-as a good time, a kind, lorgiving. chantaole, pleasant time, the only tUne I kn;ow of in /the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts fully, and to think of people below them as if really they were fellow passengers to the grave, and) , 10 t another race of creatures bound on other journeys. i believe it has "done me good, and me good, and therefore I 1 say bless it I" Dicbeni-i himself has undoubtedly done much good by his cheery, manly, honest way of looking at things, his true-henrtcd-nass, and his great sympathy— a quality seldom or never in excess of the demand—with the poor and needy. It is singular to reflect that Ihe author of the Christmas Carol raised a storm of angry objurgation by the pious and isomewhat obvious reflection that " it is good to be a child sometimes, and never more so than at Christmas, when its Founder was Himself a Child." When, in these opening days of the twentieth century> we reflect on the strength of the antagonism to that Founder, when we see Atheism openly championed—when we see scientific men ready to renounce their glorious heritage of future life for u mess of potage—we wonder that really good men could have found fault with an author who pressed into his service the argument—a perfectly fa,ir one—of the human nature of the Saviour. But so it is. It is to the human side of our faith that Christmas memories especially cling ; and alter all, to men weak and fallible and of flesh and blood, that side is one that especially tells. We are men, and in this worljd must bo men ; and we shall find that the better part of our religion is that which closely concerns our fellows. " Depend upon It,-' says a learned divine, " niiiecenths of Christianity is nothing more or less than good nature." Good human nature it is. Happy ahiall we 'be if our Christmas memories revert to noine good action performed, some pain assuaged, or some trouble driven away from tihe breasts of Others. " Who would not be a boy again ?" is a qjucstion asked by a poet, and only to be answered in the affirmative by all. Whether poor or rich, the child is pleased with smaller pleasures, and he has an expansive fortune before him. Indeed, the harder lot is generally the hapqier* iWhlttt .is worth playing i(n life is the glome ; the hsnd is not to be considered. Wonderful it is to think of the happy times when we were schoolboys, and did not care who was "im" or who was "but," whether our friends wera rich or poor, or whether Mro Jones Joeclyh had called upon us or Mrs Brown Sroythe had sent tas cards. The boy "cares for none 'of those 'things," and he is q|uite right. If we could only conjure up his cleanness of vision, his trust and his faith, how. happy we should be ! And while we are about it we may as well recall, to form our group of Christmas memories, the kindly deeds of our fi-iends, the warm words and praises that we have all received in life. The young especially to-day BhouW be ever grateful for the care and indulgence shown to them, and every child—some sad exceptions notwithstanding—has its mother who is ready to load it with love, and its father, brothers and sisters, who, by the mysterious ordination of Providence, believe their "ttin corbie (crow) aye blacker than the lave" (rest). How much gratitude should we feel to those who marked our trembling footsteps and believed in us when we could not trust ourselves ! The secret of being happy, which to each of our subscribers we will impatrt for the small com which, rmrchases thii paper, and for nothing to all to those who borrow or riead it without "buying, is t)j think little of oursidves and a great deal of our fortunes, and of what others do for us. Therefore, when we cxohange the greeting "A Marry Christmas to you " with friends in street, office, factory or home, let the vSsiojns of the fun and frolic of our boyhood days rise around, lending to our Christmas memories so much of happiness that we give the words so easily spoken a real and true ring of gladness and'goodwill. Let us, in fact and in deed, reckon up the many blessings we have to bo thankful for, and with these around us register the determination to carry on the gome and to make others happy as we have Iveen made so. During the period which has elapsed sinee the 1903 festival of the anniversary of the birth of Christ, bringing " peace and goodwill " to men, our district has seen prosperous times. There is every prospect that this happy state of affairs will continue, and hoping and believing this we wish our readers A MERRY CHRISTMAS.