"Where is the guest whose birthday it is?" Alas I n.o.body knew. There they were, all excited and trying to enjoy themselves by celebrating his birthday, and he,--some of them did not even know who he was! He was left out and forgotten!
When they had wondered for a little while they immediately forgot again, and went on with their celebrations,--all except the little child. He slipped out of the room and made up his mind to find the man whose birthday it was, and, finally, after a hard search, he found him upstairs in the attic,--lonely and sick.
He had been asked to leave the guestroom, which he had occupied, and to move upstairs, so as to be out of the way of the preparations for his birthday. Here he had fallen ill, and no one had had time to think of him, excepting one of the humbler servants and this little child. They had all been so busy preparing for his birthday festival that they had forgotten him entirely.
This is the way it is with most of us at Christmas time.
Whenever we think of a friend, or even an acquaintance, we think of his various qualities,--not always in detail, but as forming a general impression which we a.s.sociate with his name. If it is a friend whom we love and admire, we love, especially on his birthday, to dwell on all that is good and true in his character; and at such times, though he may be miles away in body, we find ourselves living with him every hour of the day, and feel his presence, and, from that feeling, do our daily tasks with the greater satisfaction and joy.
Every one in this part of the world, of course, knows whose birthday we celebrate on the twenty-fifth of December. If we imagine that such a man never really existed, that he was simply an ideal character, and nothing more,--if we were to take Christmas Day as the festival of a n.o.ble myth,--the ideal which it represents is so clear, so true, so absolutely practical in the way it is recorded in the book of his life, that it would be a most helpful joy to reflect upon it, and to try and apply its beautiful lessons on the day which would especially recall it to our minds.
Or, let us suppose that such a man really did exist,--a man whose character was transcendently clear and true, quiet, steady, and strong,--a man who was full of warm and tender love for all,--who was constantly doing good to others without the slightest display or self-a.s.sertion,--a man who was simple and humble,--who looked the whole world in the face and did what was right,--even though the whole respectable world of his day disapproved of him, and even though this same world attested in the most emphatic manner that he was doing what was dangerous and wicked,--a man with spiritual sight so keen that it was far above and beyond any mere intellectual power,--a sight compared to which, what is commonly known as intellectual keenness is, indeed, as darkness unto light; a man with a loving consideration for others so true and tender that its life was felt by those who merely touched the hem of his garment.
Suppose we knew that such a man really did live in this world, and that the record of his life and teachings const.i.tute the most valuable heritage of our race,--what new life it would give us to think of him, especially on his birthday,--to live over, so far as we were able, his qualities as we knew them; and to gain, as a result, new clearness for our own everyday lives. The better we knew the man, the more clearly we could think of him, and the more full our thoughts would be of living, practical suggestions for daily work.
But now just think what it would mean to us if we really knew that this humble, loving man were the Creator of the universe--the very G.o.d--who took upon Himself our human nature with all its hereditary imperfections; and, in that human nature met and conquered every temptation that ever was, or ever could be possible to man; thus--by self-conquest--receiving all the divine qualities into his human nature, and bringing them into this world within reach of the hearts and minds of all men, to give light and warmth to their lives, and to enable them to serve each other;--if we could take this view of the man"s life and work, with what quiet reverence and joy should we celebrate the twenty-fifth of December as a day set apart to celebrate His birth into the world!
If we ourselves loved a truthful, quiet way of living better than any other way, how would we feel to see our friends preparing to celebrate our birthday with strain, anxiety, and confusion? If we valued a loving consideration for others more than anything else in the world, how would it affect us to see our friends preparing for the festival with a forced sense of the conventional necessity for giving?
Who gives himself with his gift feeds three,-- Himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me."
That spirit should be in every Christmas gift throughout Christendom. The most thoughtless man or woman would recognize the truth if they could look at it quietly with due regard for the real meaning of the day. But after having heard and a.s.sented to the truth, the thoughtless people would, from force of habit, go on with the same rush and strain.
It is comparatively easy to recognize the truth, but it is quite another thing to habitually recognize your own disobedience to it, and compel yourself to shun that disobedience, and so habitually to obey,--and to obey it is our only means of treating the truth with real respect. When you ask a man, about holiday time, how his wife is, not uncommonly he will say:--
"Oh, she is all tired out getting ready for Christmas."
And how often we hear the boast:--
"I had one hundred Christmas presents to buy, and I am completely worn out with the work of it."
And these very women who are tired and strained with the Christmas work, "put on an expression" and talk with emotion of the beauty of Christmas, and the joy there is in the "Christmas feeling."
Just so every one at the birthday party of the absent guest exclaimed with delight at all the pleasures provided, although the essential spirit of the occasion contradicted directly the qualities of the man whose birthday it was supposed to honor.
How often we may hear women in the railway cars talking over their Christmas shopping:--
"I got so and so for James,--that will do for him, don"t you think so?"
And, when her companion answers in the affirmative, she gives a sigh of relief, as if to say, now he is off my mind!
Poor woman, she does not know what it means to give herself with her gift. She is missing one of the essentials of the true joy of Christmas Day. Indeed, if all her gifts are given in that spirit, she is directly contradicting the true spirit of the day. How many of us are unconsciously doing the same thing because of our--habit of regarding Christmas gifts as a matter of conventional obligation.
If we get the spirit of giving because of Him whose birthday it is, we shall love to give, and our hearts will go out with our gifts,--and every gift, whether great or small, will be a thoughtful message of love from one to another. There are now many people, of course, who have this true spirit of Christmas giving, and they are the people who most earnestly wish that they had more. Then there are many more who do not know the spirit of a truly thoughtful gift, but would be glad to know it, if it could once be brought to their attention.
We cannot give in a truly loving spirit if we give in order that we may receive.
We cannot give truly in the spirit of Christmas if we rush and hurry, and feel strained and anxious about our gifts.
We cannot give truly if we give more than we can afford.
People have been known to give nothing, because they could not give something expensive; they have been known to give nothing in order to avoid the trouble of careful and appropriate selection: but to refrain from giving for such reasons is as much against the true spirit of Christmas as is the hurried, excited gift-making of conventionality.
Even now there is joy in the Christmas time, in spite of the rush and hurry and selfishness, and the spirit of those who keep the joy alive by remembering whose birthday it is, serves as leaven all over the world.
First let us remember what Christmas stands for, and then let us try to realize the qualities of the great personality which gave the day its meaning and significance,--let us honor them truly in all our celebrations. If we do this, we shall at the same time be truly honoring the qualities, and respecting the needs of every friend to whom we give, and our gifts, whether great or small, will be full of the spirit of discriminating affection. Let us realize that in order to give truly, we must give soberly and quietly, and let us take an hour or more by ourselves to think over our gifts before we begin to buy or to make them. If we do that the helpful thoughts are sure to come, and new life will come with them.
A wise man has described the difference between heaven and h.e.l.l by saying that in heaven, every one wants to give all that he has to every one else, and that in h.e.l.l, every one wants to take away from others all they have. It is the spirit of heaven that belongs to Christmas.
XIV
_To Mothers_
MOST mothers know that it is better for the baby to put him into his crib and let him go quietly to sleep by himself, than to rock him to sleep or put him to sleep in his mother"s arms.
Most mothers know also the difficulty of getting the baby into the right habit of going to sleep; and the prolonged crying that has to be endured by both mother and baby before the habit is thoroughly established.
Many a mother gets worn out in listening to her crying child, and goes to bed tired and jaded, although she has done nothing but sit still and listen. Many more, after listening and fretting for a while, go and take up the baby, and thus they weaken him as well as their own characters.
A baby who finds out, when he is two months old, that his mother will take him up if he cries, is also apt to discover, if he cries or teases enough, that his mother will let him have his own way for the rest of his life.
The result is that the child rules the mother, rather than the mother the child; and this means sad trouble and disorder for both.
Strong, quiet beginnings are a most valuable help to all good things in life, and if a young mother could begin by learning how to sit quietly and restfully and let her baby cry until he quieted down and went to sleep, she would be laying the foundation for a very happy life with her children.
The first necessity, after having seen that nothing is hurting him and that he really needs nothing, is to be willing that he should cry. A mother can make herself willing by saying over and over to herself, "It is right that he should cry; I want him to cry until he has learned to go to sleep quietly by himself He will be a stronger and a more healthy man for getting into all good habits as a child."
Often the mother"s spirit is willing, or wants to be willing, but her nerves rebel if, while she is teaching herself to listen quietly, she will take long, quiet breaths very steadily for some time, and will occupy herself with interesting work, she will find it a great help toward dropping nervous resistance.
Children are much more sensitive than most people know, and readily respond to the mother"s state of mind; and even though the mother is in the next room, if she is truly dropping her nervous resistance and tension, the baby will often stop his crying all the sooner, and besides, his mother will feel the good effects of her quiet yielding in her care of the baby all day long. She will be rested instead of tired when the baby has gone to sleep. She will have a more refreshing sleep herself, and she will be able to care for the baby more restfully when they are both awake.
It is a universal rule that the more excited or naughty the children are, the more quiet and clear the mother should be. A mother who realizes this for the first time, and works with herself until she is free from all excited and strained resistance, discovers that it is through her care for her children that she herself has learned how to live. Blessed are the children who have such a mother, and blessed is the mother of those children!
It is resistance--resistance to the naughtiness or disobedience in the child that not only hurts and tires the mother, but interferes with the best growth of the child.
"What!" a mother may say, "should I want my child to be naughty?
What a dreadful thing!"
No, we should not want our children to be naughty, but we should be willing that they should be. We should drop resistance to their naughtiness, for that will give us clear, quiet minds to help them out of their troubles.
All vehemence is weak; quiet, clear decision is strong; and the child not only feels the strength of the quiet, decisive action, but he feels the help from his mother"s quiet atmosphere which comes with it. If all parents realized fully that the work they do for their children should be done in themselves first, there would soon be a new and wonderful influence perceptible all about us.