It is Christmas Eve. I have seated myself by my typewriter in my cozy
study, to write the last lines of this story. Mattie is down at the
Auditorium, helping to trim the Christmas tree for the children. I
just came up from there. Our picturesque little vine-covered bungalow
is on the hill. The Christmas tree had so many helpers that I was
not needed. Miss Marsh is joyously superintending the whole thing.
Our different members are coming and going. Each brings an armful of
presents.
I stood a while and watched their beaming, happy faces. Most of them
have known a good many Christmas Eves. One-a hearty old Pacific
sea-captain of eighty-showed me some toy ships he had whittled out
with his knife. He called my attention to all the proper nautical
detail. No builder of big ocean liners could have felt more pride
in his accomplishment. I watched him carefully place the toy ships
with the other presents underneath the Christmas tree; and the fact
was impressed upon me that he had caught the _real_ Christmas spirit.
He had _created_ something, which would carry his own creative joy
into the lives of others. And is not this-_the carrying of one’s own
creative joy into the lives of others_-the very essence of the thing
which we vaguely call “service”?
When I reached the brow of the hill on my way home from the
Auditorium, I halted and looked back at our little Youthland Colony,
lying there in the moonlight. Out beyond, the moonbeams made a
glistening pathway to it across the dusky waters of the old Pacific.
At the back, rose the dim shapes of the mountains. The sweet odor of
orange-blossoms filled the air. In this beautiful spot our little
group was trying to realize the creative life-the life of continued
growth and usefulness. Deep emotion stirred within me.
My gaze traveled out over the moonlighted ocean, and I thought
of the many peoples of the globe celebrating this Christmas Eve.
Gratitude for my own wonderful opportunity made me want to help these
others. For I knew that nations, like individuals, were suffering in
the grip of the old-age spirit-that effort of fear to strangle growth
and progress. If only mankind might learn that the value of a nation
depends upon the _usefulness_ of all of its men and women, upon the
youth-spirit, which is courageous, venturesome, and optimistic enough
to make the whole human race one great world-family.
Off in the distance the old mission bell began to ring. It was
sending out its mediæval understanding of the Christmas message,
which the Voice spoke to the Shepherds of old. But we, in our
Youthland Colony, have learned that the Voice, all down through the
years, has been trying to make man understand that he must follow
the guiding star and find the tidings of great joy in the birth of
_his own creative self_-the God Power within his own being. When a
man gains this interpretation of the Voice’s message he becomes an
influence for growth and progress in the Great Life-Adventure-