THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1906. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8318, 24 December 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1906. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.

Merry Christmastide is here once mare, and there is not one among us just at hand.\ ,We all look forward who is not glad that Christmas Day is to our great annual day of rejoicing, and are sorry when it has passed. Christmas is the one day in the year when we seem, as an entire people, to live a life more in conformity with the life that we should lead from one Christmas to another. We have said "seem to live," because, hs a matter of fact, it is quite impossible for people to change their real lives so as to make them fit in to different seasons of the year. It is, however, at this time of the year that we take pleasure in showing our affection for, and interest in, relatives and friends, and everyone, indeed, with whom we come in contact. But this affection and kindly regard has not been suddenly developed as the result of the season coming round again—it has been in existence all along, and that is why on all sides we see the revival of those many pretty customs, which kindness of heart has prompted, and generosity of will fulfilled, for so very many, many years, and in so many different countries. The spirit of Christmas, suddenly waxing stronger • than usual, brightens the hospital ward, and even forces its'way into the sombre, dreary, gaol. The welfare of the poor, the afflicted, and distressed peculiarly commands, at this season of the year, the sympathies of humanitarians and social workers. Men and women of all positions and conditions in life feel, and are, the better for the return of Christmas. In prosperous New Zealand there are not, fortunately, those great efforts, which are made in older and thickly-populated countries, to ensure, as far as possible, that everyone shall spend at least one happy day in the year, but there

are, one realises with feelings of thankfulness, those of kindly heart who see to it that others, who may be in unfortunate circumstances, are cheered and assisted upon that day—the birthday of the King of Love. And what is the spirit of Christmas that pervades the whole community? It is the outcome of the teaching of those great, highborn, and tender truths of human life and destiny, taught by the Master Teacher, many centuries ago, in that far-away Eastern land. The religion of Love —the greatest and most beautiful of all religions—which the one and only perfect religion the world has ever known or will ever know. And that religion can only be truly exemplified in the service of others. A modern writer has said: "It is a well-known law in the natural world about us that whatever has not use, that whatever serves no purpose, shrivels up. So it is a law of our own being that he who makes himself of no use, of no service to the great body of mankind, who is concerned only with his own small self,- finds that self —small as it is—growing smaller and smaller, and those finer and better and grander qualities of his nature, those that give the chief charm and happiness to life, shrivelling up. Such an one lives, keeps constant company with his own diminutive and stunted self; while he who, forgetting self, makes the object! of his life service, helpfulness, and kindliness to others, finds his whole nature growing and expanding, himself becoming large-hearted, magnanimous, kind, loving, sympathetic, joyous, and happy, his life becoming rich and beautiful. For instead of his own little life alone, he has entered into and has part in a hundred, a thousand, aye, in countless numbers of other lives; and every success, every joy, tevery happiness coming to each of these comes as such to him, for he has a part in each and all. And thus it is that one becomes a prince among men, a queen among women." It was this spirit that "made"—if we may so phrase it — such men at Bishop Wilberforce, Dr. Barnado, Mr Gladstone, General Booth, and countless others, both men and women, whose lives have been given to the service of their fellow human beings. Love for others, the spirit of Christianity, is the one progressive force that is at work throughout the whoie of Christendom to-day.