meaning in the language. It is _rancour_. Let us do away with it,
let us put it aside. If we are poor let us be brethren to the
other poor, if we are rich let us be brethren to the other rich,
if we are wise let us be brethren to the other wise, if we are
foolish let us be brethren to the other foolish. Ah, that is not
difficult; it is an easy task. But that is not enough.
Brotherhood is broader, thank God! Let the poor be brethren to
the rich and the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, the
misguided to the well-directed, the ignorant to the wise, the
foolish to the discreet, the discreet to the foolish, the glad to
the sorrowful, the sorrowful to the glad, the servants of the
Lord to the sinners against Him!
“Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers,
In the brave days of old.”
Let us make out of the old pagan ideals present-day realities in
our hearts as we go even unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle
of the King; realities in His own nobler and better words:
“_Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again
those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their
sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel
preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be
offended in Me_.”
Peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men of goodwill! That is
what the angels sang. But there is nothing on earth to prevent
us from making it our human song as well. As we stand by the
cradle of the Master and peer into the manger at that which
every human being loves, a baby, our earthly differences of
nationality, of rank, power, station, and influence—things that
are but the guinea’s stamp upon the gold of character and
personality—fade into insignificance and become as nothing. The
little child in life notices none of these distinctions, he
marks nothing of them. Let us come as little children before
Him. We may be war-battered, sin-marked, toil-stained,
care-burdened. Let us forget it all this Christmas morning.
It was a poor place, that manger—the poorest place on earth—but
it was a place. It was somewhere. Let us give humanity even as
little as a manger. Let us not take up the Christ Child as we
see Him and throw Him out into the streets, or into no man’s
land. That is what we do when we mock Him, when we deny Him,
when we laugh Him to scorn. Let us not shut Him out of His home
place in our souls. Let us not refuse to open when His hand
knocks upon the door. That is what we do when we are
indifferent to Him. Let us take him out of the manger cradle,
each one of us, and enthrone Him in the most precious place we
have, our inmost hearts.
It all happened a very long time ago and much water has run in
the brooks of the world under the bridges thereof since that
time, but the mangers of the world are never empty. They are
always full. In one sense, Christ is being born everywhere at
this very hour and at all hours.
Let us give the Child the best we have, the best we can. Let us
even now go down unto Bethlehem, laden with what we have for
the use of the King, and let us see in every child of man that
lacks anything this Christmas morning the image of Him who in
that manger lay in Bethlehem and let us minister to their needs
in love.
“The little Christ is coming down[1]
Across the fields of snow;
The pine trees greet Him where they stand,
The willows bend to kiss His hand,
The mountain laurel is ablush
In hidden nooks; the wind, ahush
And tiptoe, lest the violets wake
Before their time for His sweet sake;
The stars, down dropping, form a crown
Upon the waiting hills below—
The little Christ is coming down
Across the fields of snow.
“The little Christ is coming down
Across the city streets;
The wind blows coldly from the north,
His dimpled hands are stretching forth,
And no one knows and no one cares,
The priests are busy with their prayers,
The jostling crowd hastes on apace,
And no one sees the pleading face,
None hears the cry as through the town
He wanders with His small cold feet—
The little Christ is coming down
Acrossthe city streets.”
What welcome shall we have for Him, my friends?
[1] These loving and appealing verses were written by Harriet F.
Blodgett, of whom unfortunately I know absolutely nothing but her
name. I am sure, however, that if they had been written today another
verse, even more touching than those I have quoted, would have been
inspired by present conditions. And we should have seen “The Little
Christ” coming down between the lines in Flanders, on the Balkan
Frontier, amid the snows of Russia and the deserts of Mesopotamia, and
perhaps, as of old, even walking on the waters in the midst of the
sea.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHRISTMAS IN THE SNOWS
_Being Some Personal Adventures in the Far West_[2]
The love of Christmas is as strong in the West as it is in any
section of the country—perhaps, indeed, stronger, for people
who have few pleasures cherish holidays more highly than those
for whom many cheap amusements are provided. But when the
manifestation of the Christmas spirit is considered, there is a
great difference between the West and the East. There are vast
sections of country in which evergreens do not grow and to
which it would not pay to ship them; consequently Christmas
trees are not common, and therefore they are the more prized
when they may be had. There are no great rows nor small
clusters of inviting shops filled with suggestive and
fascinating contents at attractive prices. The distances from
centres of trade are so great that the things which may be
purchased even in the smallest towns in more favourable
localities for a few cents have there almost a prohibitive
price put upon them. The efforts of the people to give their
children a merry Christmas in the popular sense, however, are
strong and sometimes pitiful.
It must not be forgotten that the West is settled by Eastern
people, and that no very great difference exists between them
save for the advantages presented by life in the West for the
higher development of character. Western people are usually
brighter, quicker, more progressive and less conservative, and
more liberal than those from whom they came. The survival of
the fittest is the rule out there and the qualities of
character necessary to that end are brought to the top by the
strenuous life necessitated by the hardships of the frontier.
If the people are not any better than they were, it is because
they are still clinging to the obsolete ideas of the East.
The Eastern point of view always reminds me of the reply of the
bishop to the layman who was deploring the poor quality of the
clergy. “Yes,” said the bishop, “some of them are poor; but
consider the stock from which they come. You see, we have
nothing but laymen out of which to make them.”
The East never understands the West—the real West that is,
which lies beyond the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Rocky
Mountains. They know nothing of its ideas, its capacities, its
possibilities, its educational facilities, its culture, its
real power, in the East. And they do not wish to learn,
apparently. The Easterners fatuously think, like Job, that they
are the people, and wisdom will die with them. Some years since
an article in the “Forum” on the theme, “Kansas more civilized
than New York” conclusively proved the proposition to the
satisfaction of the present writer at least.
Yet I know numberless dwellers in Gotham whose shibboleth is
“nothing outside of New York City but scenery,” and they are a
little dubious about admitting that. When one describes the
Grand Canyon or the Royal Gorge they point to Nassau or Wall
Street, and the Woolworth tower challenges Pike’s Peak!
I sat at a dinner table one day when the salted almonds were
handed me with the remark: “I suppose you never saw anything
like these out West. Try some.” And my wife has been quite
gravely asked if we feared any raids by the Indians and if they
troubled us by their marauding in Kansas. I have found it
necessary to inform the curious that we did not live in tepees
or wigwams when in Nebraska or Colorado.
Shortly after I came East to live I was talking with a man and
a very stupid man at that, who informed me that he graduated
from Harvard; to which surprising statement he added the
startling information, for the benefit of my presumably
untutored occidental mind, that it was a college near Boston!
They have everything in the West that the East has so far as
their sometimes limited means will provide them and when they
have no money they have patience, endurance, grim
determination, and courage, which are better than money in the
long run.
The cities and smaller towns especially as a rule are cleaner,
better governed, more progressive, better provided with
improvements and comforts than corresponding places in the
East. Scarcely a community exists without its water works,
electric light plant, telephone system, trolleys, paved
streets, etc. Of course, this does not apply to the extreme
frontier in which my field of work largely lay so many years
ago. The conditions were different there—the people too in that
now far-distant time.
But to return to Christmas. One Christmas day I left my family
at one o’clock in the morning. Christmas salutations were
exchanged at that very sleepy hour and I took the fast express
to a certain station whence I could drive up country to a
little church in a farming country in which there had never
been a Christmas service. It was a bitter cold morning, deep
snow on the ground, and a furious north wind raging.
The climate is variable indeed out West. I have spent Christmas
days on which it rained all day and of all days in the year on
which to have it rain, Christmas is the worst. Still, the
farmers would be thankful. It was usually safe to be thankful
out there whenever it rained. I knew a man once who said you
could make a fortune by always betting two to one that it would
not rain, no matter what the present promise of the weather
was. You were bound to win nine times out of ten.
I hired a good sleigh and two horses, and drove to my
destination. The church was a little old brick building right
out in the prairie. There was a smouldering fire in a
miserable, worn-out stove which hardly raised the temperature
of the room a degree although it filled the place with smoke.
The wind had free entrance through the ill-fitting window and
door frames and a little pile of snow formed on the altar
during the service. I think there were twelve people who had
braved the fury of the storm. There was not an evergreen within
a hundred miles of the place and the only decoration was
sage-brush. To wear vestments was impossible, and I conducted
the service in a buffalo overcoat and a fur cap and gloves as I
have often done. It was short and the sermon was shorter. Mem.:
If you want short sermons give your Rector a cold church or a
hot one!
After service I went to dinner at the nearest farm-house. Such
a Christmas dinner it was! There was no turkey, and they did
not even have a chicken. The menu was corn-bread, ham, and
potatoes, and mighty few potatoes at that. There were two
children in the family, a girl of six and a boy of five. They
were glad enough to get the ham. Their usual bill of fare was
composed of potatoes and corn-bread, and sometimes corn-bread
alone. My wife had put up a lunch for me, fearing that I might
not be able to get anything to eat, in which there was a small
mince-pie turnover; and the children had slipped a small box of
candy in my bag as a Christmas gift. I produced the turnover
which by common consent was divided between the astonished
children. Such a glistening of eyes and smacking of small lips
you never saw!
“This pie makes it seem like Christmas, after all,” said the
little girl, with her mouth full.
“Yes,” said the boy, ditto, “that and the ham.”
“We didn’t have any Christmas this year,” continued the small
maiden. “Last year mother made us some potato men” (_i.e._,
little animal and semi-human figures made out of potatoes and
matches with buttons for eyes; they went into many stockings
among the very poor out West then).
“But this year,” interrupted the boy, “potatoes are so scarce
that we couldn’t have ’em. Mother says that next year perhaps
we will have some real Christmas.”
They were so brave about it that my heart went out to them.
Children and no Christmas gifts! Only the chill, bare room, the
wretched, meagre meal. I ransacked my brain. Finally something
occurred to me. After dinner I excused myself and hurried back
to the church. There were two small wicker baskets there which
were used for the collection—old but rather pretty. I selected
the best one. Fortunately I had in my grip a neat little
“housewife” which contained a pair of scissors, a huge thimble,
needles, thread, a tiny little pin-cushion, an emery bag,
buttons, etc. I am, like most ex-sailors, something of a
needleman myself. I emptied the contents into the collection
basket and garnished the dull little affair with the bright
ribbon ties ripped off the “housewife” and went back to the
house.
To the boy I gave my penknife which happened to be nearly new,
and to the girl the church basket with the sewing things for a
work-basket. The joy of those children was one of the finest
things I have ever witnessed. The face of the little girl was
positively filled with awe as she lifted from the basket, one
by one, the pretty and useful articles the “housewife” had
supplied and when I added the small box of candy that my
children had provided me, they looked at me with feelings of
reverence, as a visible incarnation of Santa Claus. They were
the cheapest and most effective Christmas presents it was ever
my pleasure to bestow. I hope to be forgiven for putting the
church furniture to such a secular use.
Another Christmas day I had a funeral. There was no snow, no
rain. The day was warm. The woman who died had been the wife of
one of the largest farmers in the diocese. He actually owned a
continuous body of several thousands of acres of fine land,
much of it under cultivation. She had been a fruitful mother
and five stalwart sons, all married, and several daughters
likewise, with numerous grandchildren represented her
contribution to the world’s population. They were the people of
the most consideration in the little community in which they
lived. We had the services in the morning in the Methodist
church, which was big enough to hold about six hundred people.
As it was a holiday, it was filled to the very doors. One of my
farmer friends remarked as we stood on the front steps watching
the crowd assembling:
“My, doc, all of them wagons gatherin’ here makes it seem more
like circus day than a funeral.”
I had been asked to preach a sermon, which I essayed to do. The
confusion was terrific. In order to be present themselves the
mothers in Israel had been obliged to bring their children, and
the most domestic of attentions were being bestowed upon them
freely. They cried and wailed and expostulated with their
parents in audible tones until I was nearly frantic. I found
myself shouting consoling platitudes to a sobbing,
grief-stricken band of relatives and endeavouring to drown the
noise of the children by roaring—the lion’s part à la Bottom.
It was distracting. I was a very young minister at the time and
the perspiration fairly rained from me. That’s what makes me
remember it was a warm day.
When we got through the services after every one of the six
hundred had, in the language of the local undertaker, “viewed
the remains,” we went to the cemetery. I rode behind a horse
which was thirty-eight years old. I do not know what his
original colour had been but at present he was white and hoary
with age.
“I always use him for funerals,” said the undertaker, “because
he naturally sets the proper pace for a funeral procession.”
“Mercy,” said I, “I hope he won’t die on the road.”
“Well, if he does,” continued the undertaker, “your services
will come in handy. We can bury him proper. I am awful fond of
that horse. I shouldn’t wonder if he hadn’t been at as many as
a thousand funerals in his life.”
I thought that he had all the gravity of his grewsome
experiences, especially in his gait. The Christmas dinners were
all late on account of the funeral but they were bountiful and
good nevertheless and I much enjoyed mine.
Another Christmas I was snow-bound on one of the obscure
branches of a Western railroad. If the train had been on time I
would have made a connection and have reached home by Christmas
Eve, but it was very evident, as the day wore on, that it was
not going to be on time. Indeed it was problematical whether it
would get anywhere at all. It was snowing hard outside. Our
progress had become slower and slower. Finally in a deep cut we
stopped. There were four men, one woman, and two little
children in the car—no other passengers in the train. The train
was of that variety known out West as a “plug” consisting of a
combination baggage and smoker and one coach.
One of the trainmen started on a lonely and somewhat dangerous
tramp of several miles up the road to the next station to call
for the snow-plough, and the rest of us settled down to spend
the night. Certainly we could not hope to be extricated before
the next evening, especially as the storm then gave no signs of
abating. We all went up to the front of the car and sat around
the stove in which we kept up a bright fire,—fortunately we had
plenty of fuel—and in such circumstances we speedily got
acquainted with each other. One of the men was a “drummer,” a
travelling man for a notion house; another was a cow-boy; the
third was a big cattle-man; and I was the last. We soon found
that the woman was a widow who had maintained herself and the
children precariously since the death of her husband by sewing
and other feminine odd jobs but had at last given up the
unequal struggle and was going back to live with her mother,
also a widow who had some little property.
The poor little threadbare children had cherished anticipations
of a joyous Christmas with their grandmother. From their talk
we could hear that a Christmas tree had been promised them and
all sorts of things. They were intensely disappointed at the
blockade. They cried and sobbed and would not be comforted.
Fortunately the woman had a great basket filled with
substantial provisions which, by the way, she generously shared
with the rest of us, so we were none of us hungry. As the night
fell, we tipped up two of the seats, placed the bottoms
sideways, and with our overcoats made two good beds for the
little folks. Just before they went to sleep the drummer said
to me:
“Say, parson, we’ve got to give those children some Christmas.”
“That’s what,” said the cow-boy.
“I’m agreed,” added the cattle-man.
“Madam,” said the drummer, addressing the woman with the easy
assurance of his class, after a brief consultation between us,
“we are going to give your kids some Christmas.”
The woman beamed at him gratefully.
“Yes, children,” said the now enthused drummer, as he turned to
the open-mouthed children, “Santa Claus is coming round
to-night sure. We want you to hang up your stockings.”
“We ain’t got none,” quivered the little girl, “’ceptin’ those
we’ve got on and ma says it’s too cold to take ’em off.”
“I’ve got two new pair of woollen socks,” said the cattle-man
eagerly, “which I ain’t never wore, and you are welcome to
’em.”
There was a clapping of little hands in childish glee, and then
the two faces fell as the elder remarked.
“But Santa Claus will know they are not our stockings and he
will fill them with things for you instead.”
“Lord love you,” said the burly cattle-man, roaring with
infectious laughter, “he wont bring me nothin’. One of us will
sit up anyway and tell him it’s for you. You’ve got to hustle
to bed right away because he may be here any time now.”
Then came one of those spectacles which we sometimes meet once
or twice in a lifetime. The children knelt down on the rough
floor of the car beside their improvised beds. Instinctively
the hands of the men went to their heads and at the first words
of “Now I lay me down to sleep,” four hats came off. The
cow-boy stood twirling his hat and looking at the little
kneeling figures; the cattle-man’s vision seemed dimmed; while
in the eyes of the travelling man there shone a distant look—a
look across snow-filled prairies to a warmly lighted home.
The children were soon asleep. Then the rest of us engaged in
earnest conversation. What should we give them? was the
question.
“It don’t seem to me that I’ve got anything to give ’em,” said
the cow-boy mournfully, “unless the little kid might like my
spurs, an’ I would give my gun to the little girl, though on
general principles I don’t like to give up a gun. You never
know when you’re goin’ to need it, ’specially with strangers,”
he added with a rather suspicious glance at me. I would not
have harmed him for the world.
“I’m in much the same fix,” said the cattle-man. “I’ve got a
flask of prime old whiskey here, but it don’t seem like it’s
very appropriate for the occasion, though it’s at the service
of any of you gents.”
“Never seen no occasion in which whiskey wasn’t appropriate,”
said the cow-boy, mellowing at the sight of the flask.
“I mean ’taint fit for kids,” explained the cattle-man handing
it over.
“I begun on’t rather early,” remarked the puncher, taking a
long drink, “an’ I always use it when my feelin’s is onsettled,
like now.” He handed it back with a sigh.
“Never mind, boys,” said the drummer. “You all come along with
me to the baggage car.”
So off we trooped. He opened his trunks, and spread before us
such a glittering array of trash and trinkets as almost took
away our breath.
“There,” he said, “look at that. We’ll just pick out the best
things from the lot, and I’ll donate them all.”
“No, you don’t,” said the cow-boy. “My ante’s in on this game,
an’ I’m goin’ to buy what chips I want, an’ pay fer ’em too,
else there ain’t going to be no Christmas around here.”
“That’s my judgment, too,” said the cattle-man.
“I think that will be fair,” said I. “The travelling man can
donate what he pleases, and we can each of us buy what we
please, as well.”
I think we spent hours looking over the stock which the
obliging man spread out all over the car for us. He was going
home, he said, and everything was at our service. The trainmen
caught the infection, too, and all hands finally went back to
the coach with such a load of stuff as you never saw before. We
filled the socks and two seats besides with it. The grateful
mother was simply dazed.
As we all stood about, gleefully surveying our handiwork
including the bulging socks, the engineer remarked:
“We’ve got to get some kind of a Christmas tree.”
So two of us ploughed off on the prairie—it had stopped snowing
and was bright moon-light—and wandered around until we found a
good-sized piece of sage-brush, which we brought back and
solemnly installed and the woman decorated it with bunches of
tissue paper from the notion stock and clean waste from the
engine. We hung the train lanterns around it.
We were so excited that we actually could not sleep. The
contagion of the season was strong upon us, and I know not
which were the more delighted the next morning, the children or
the amateur Santa Clauses, when they saw what the cow-boy
called the “layout.”
Great goodness! Those children never did have, and probably
never will have, such a Christmas again. And to see the thin
face of that mother flush with unusual colour when we handed
her one of those monstrous red plush albums which we had
purchased jointly and in which we had all written our names in
lieu of our photographs, and between the leaves of which the
cattle-man had generously slipped a hundred dollar bill, was
worth being blockaded for a dozen Christmases. Her eyes filled
with tears and she fairly sobbed before us.