beautiful farms in Western New York--an experience that any city-bred
boy might envy. We had no religious festivals except Thanksgiving Day
and Christmas, and the latter was especially welcome, not only on
account of the good fare but its good gifts. Christmas was sacred to
Santa Claus, the patron saint of good boys and girls. We counted the
days until its arrival. If the night before the longed-for festival was
one of eager expectation in all our houses, it was a sad time in all
barn-yards and turkey-coops and chicken-roosts; for the slaughter was
terrible, and the cry of the feathered tribes was like "the mourning of
Hadadrimmon." As to our experiences within doors, they are portrayed in
Dr. Clement C. Moore's immortal lines, "The Night Before Christmas,"
which is probably the most popular poem for children ever penned in
America. As the visits of Santa Claus in the night could only be through
the chimney, we hung our stockings where they would be in full sight.
Three score and ten years ago such modern contrivances as steam pipes,
and those unpoetical holes in the floor called "hot-air registers," were
as entirely unknown in our rural regions as gas-burners or telephones.
We had a genuine fire-place in our kitchen, big enough to contain an
enormous back-log, and broad enough for eight or ten people to form "a
circle wide" before it and enjoy the genial warmth.
The last process before going to bed was to suspend our stockings in the
chimney jambs; and then we dreamed of Santa Claus, or if we awoke in the
night, we listened for the jingling of his sleigh-bells. At the peep of
day we were aroused by the voice of my good grandfather, who planted
himself in the stairway and shouted in a stentorian tone, "I wish you
all a Merry Christmas!" The contest was as to who should give the
salutation first, and the old gentleman determined to get the start of
us by sounding his greeting to the family before we were out of our
rooms. Then came a race for the chimney corner; all the stockings came
down quicker than they had gone up. What could not be contained in them
was disposed upon the mantelpiece, or elsewhere. I remember that I once
received an autograph letter from Santa Claus, full of good counsels;
and our colored cook told me that she awoke in the night and, peeping
into the kitchen, actually saw the veritable old visitor light a candle
and sit down at the table and write it! I believed it all as implicitly
as I believed the Ten Commandments, or the story of David and Goliath.
Happy days of childish credulity, when fact and fiction were swallowed
alike without a misgiving! During my long life I have seen many a
day-dream and many an air-castle go the way of Santa Claus and the
wonderful "Lamp of Aladdin."
In after years, when I became a parent, my beloved wife and I,
determined to make the Christmastide one of the golden days of the
twelve months. In mid-winter, when all outside vegetation was bleak and
bare, the Christmas-tree in our parlor bloomed in many-colored beauty
and bounty. When the tiny candles were all lighted the children and our
domestics gathered round it and one of the youngsters rehearsed some
pretty juvenile effusion; as "they that had found great spoil." After
the happy harvesting of the magic tree in my own home, it was my custom
to spend the afternoon or evening in some mission-school and to watch
the sparkling eyes of several hundreds of children while a huge
Christmas-tree shed down its bounties. Fifty years ago, when the
degradation and miseries of the "Five-Points" were first invaded by
pioneer philanthropy, it was a thrilling sight to behold the denizens of
the slums and their children as they flocked into Mr. Pease's new "House
of Industry" and the "Brewery Mission" building. The angelic host over
the hills of Bethlehem did not make a more welcome revelation to them
"who had sat in darkness and the shadow of death." In these days the
squalid regions of our great cities are being explored and improved by
various methods of systematic beneficence. "Christian Settlements" are
established; Bureaus of Charity are formed and Associations for the
relief of the poor are organized. A noble work; but, after all, the most
effective "bureau" is one that, in a water-proof and a stout pair of
shoes, sallies off on a wintry night to some abode of poverty with not
only supplies for suffering bodies, but kind words of sympathy for
lonesome hearts. A dollar from a warm hand with a warm word is worth two
dollars sent by mail or by a messenger-boy. The secret of power in doing
good is _personal contact_. Our incarnate "Elder Brother" went in person
to the sick chamber. He anointed with His own hand the eyes of the blind
man and He touched the loathsome leper into health. The portentous chasm
between wealth and poverty must be bridged by a span of personal
kindness over which the footsteps must turn in only one direction. The
personal contact of self sacrificing benevolence with darkness, filth
and misery--that is the only remedy. Heart must touch heart. Benevolence
also cannot be confined to calendars. Those good people will exhibit the
most of the spirit of our Blessed Master who practice Christmas-giving
and cheerful, unselfish and zealous Christmas-living through all the
circling year.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS BELLS
ANON
There are sounds in the sky when the year grows old,
And the winds of the winter blow--
When night and the moon are clear and cold,
And the stars shine on the snow,
Or wild is the blast and the bitter sleet
That beats on the window-pane;
But blest on the frosty hills are the feet
Of the Christmas time again!
Chiming sweet when the night wind swells,
Blest is the sound of the Christmas Bells!
Dear are the sounds of the Christmas chimes
In the land of the ivied towers,
And they welcome the dearest of festival times
In this Western world of ours!
Bright on the holly and mistletoe bough
The English firelight falls,
And bright are the wreathed evergreens now
That gladden our own home walls!
And hark! the first sweet note that tells,
The welcome of the Christmas Bells!
The owl that sits in the ivy's shade,
Remote from the ruined tower,
Shall start from his drowsy watch afraid
When the clock shall strike the hour;
And over the fields in their frosty rhyme
The cheery sounds shall go,
And chime shall answer unto chime
Across the moonlit snow!
How sweet the lingering music dwells,--
The music of the Christmas Bells.
It fell not thus in the East afar
Where the Babe in the manger lay;
The wise men followed their guiding star
To the dawn of a milder day;
And the fig and the sycamore gathered green,
And the palm-tree of Deborah rose;
'Twas the strange first Christmas the world had seen--
And it came not in storm and snows.
Not yet on Nazareth's hills and dells
Had floated the sound of Christmas Bells.
The cedars of Lebanon shook in the blast
Of their own cold mountain air;
But nought o'er the wintry plain had passed
To tell that the Lord was there!
The oak and the olive and almond were still,
In the night now worn and thin;
No wind of the winter-time roared from the hill
To waken the guests at the inn;
No dream to them the music tells
That is to come from the Christmas Bells!
The years that have fled like the leaves on the gale
Since the morn of the Miracle-Birth,
Have widened the fame of the marvellous tale
Till the tidings have filled the earth!
And so in the climes of the icy North,
And the lands of the cane and the palm,
By the Alpine cotter's blazing hearth,
And in tropic belts of calm,
Men list to-night the welcome swells,
Sweet and clear, of Christmas Bells!
They are ringing to-night through the Norway firs,
And across the Swedish fells,
And the Cuban palm-tree dreamily stirs
To the sound of those Christmas Bells!
They ring where the Indian Ganges rolls
Its flood through the rice-fields wide;
They swell the far hymns of the Lapps and Poles
To the praise of the Crucified.
Sweeter than tones of the ocean's shells
Mingle the chimes of the Christmas Bells!
The years come not back that have circled away
With the past of the Eastern land,
When He plucked the corn on the Sabbath day
And healed the withered hand:
But the bells shall join in a joyous chime
For the One who walked the sea,
And ring again for the better time
Of the Christ that is to be!
Then ring!--for earth's best promise dwells
In ye, O joyous Prophet Bells!
Ring out at the meeting of night and morn
For the dawn of a happier day!
Lo, the stone from our faith's great sepulchre torn
The angels have rolled away!
And they come to us here in our low abode,
With words like the sunrise gleam,--
Come down and ascend by that heavenly road
That Jacob saw in his dream.
Spirit of love, that in music dwells,
Open our hearts with the Christmas Bells!
Help us to see that the glad heart prays
As well as the bended knees;
That there are in our own as in ancient days
The Scribes and the Pharisees;
That the Mount of Transfiguration still
Looks down on these Christian lands,
And the glorified ones from that holy hill
Are reaching their helping hands.
These be the words our music tells
Of solemn joy, O Christmas Bells!
* * * * *
THE BIRTH OF CHRIST
ALFRED TENNYSON
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid--the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound.
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate and now decrease,
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace,
Peace and good-will to all mankind.
Rise, happy morn! rise, holy morn!
Draw forth the cheerful day from night;
O Father! touch the east, and light
The light that shone when hope was born!
* * * * *
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen
That overpowered their natural green.
Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest, with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze
Nor check the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand!
And who but listened--till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honor of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "Merry Christmas" wished to all!
How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
To hear, and sink again to sleep!
Or, at an earlier call, to mark
By blazing fire, the still suspense
Of self-complacent innocence;
The mutual nod,--the grave disguise
Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;
And some unbidden tears that rise
For names once heard, and heard no more;
Tears brightened by the serenade
For infant in the cradle laid.
Hail ancient Manners! sure defence,
Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
Remnants of love whose modest sense
Thus into narrow room withdraws;
Hail, Usages of pristine mould,
And ye that guard them, Mountains old!
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS AT FEZZIWIG'S WAREHOUSE
CHARLES DICKENS
"Yo ho! my boys," said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night; Christmas Eve,
Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old
Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say Jack
Robinson...."
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with
wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room
here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Cheer up, Ebenezer!"
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or
couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in
a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
public life forevermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were
trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug,
and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to see
upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk and
made an orchestra of it and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs.
Fezziwig, one vast, substantial smile. In came the three Misses
Fezziwig, beaming and lovable. In came the six followers whose hearts
they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business
In came the housemaid with her cousin the baker. In came the cook with
her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy from over
the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master,
trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one who was
proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress; in they all came,
anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands
half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again;
round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping, old top
couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off
again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a
bottom one to help them.
When this result was brought about the fiddler struck up "Sir Roger de
Coverley." Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top
couple, too, with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or
four and twenty pairs of partners; people who were not to be trifled
with; people who would dance and had no notion of walking.
But if they had been thrice as many--Oh, four times as many--old
Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig.
As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term.
If that's not high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it. A positive
light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part
of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted at any given time
what would become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig
had gone all through the dance; advance and retire; both hands to your
partner, bow and courtesy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again
to your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly that he appeared to wink
with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.
When the clock struck eleven the domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.
Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and
shaking hands with every person individually, as he or she went out,
wished him or her a Merry Christmas!
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS BELLS
JOHN KEBLE
Wake me to-night, my mother dear,
That I may hear
The Christmas Bells, so soft and clear,
To high and low glad tidings tell,
How God the Father loved us well;
How God the Eternal Son
Came to undo what we had done.
* * * * *
III
SIGNIFICANCE AND SPIRIT
A CHRISTMAS CARMEN
JOHN G. WHITTIER
I
Sound over all waters, reach out from all lands,
The chorus of voices, the clasping of hands;
Sing hymns that were sung by the stars of the morn,
Sing songs of the angels when Jesus was born!
With glad jubilations
Bring hope to the nations!
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun:
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!
II
Sing the bridal of nations! with chorals of love
Sing out the war-vulture and sing in the dove,
Till the hearts of the peoples keep time in accord
And the voice of the world is the voice of the Lord!
Clasp hands of the nations
In strong gratulations:
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun;
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!
III
Blow, bugles of battle, the marches of peace;
East, west, north, and south let the long quarrel cease:
Sing the song of great joy that the angels began,
Sing of glory to God and of good-will to man!
Hark! joining in chorus
The heavens bend o'er us!
The dark night is ending and dawn has begun;
Rise, hope of the ages, arise like the sun,
All speech flow to music, all hearts beat as one!
* * * * *
THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS
From "Pickwick Papers."
CHARLES DICKENS
And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief
season of happiness and enjoyment. How many families whose members have
been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of
life, are then re-united, and meet once again in that happy state of
companionship and mutual good-will, which is a source of such pure and
unalloyed delight, and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of
the world, that the religious belief of the most civilized nations, and
the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the
first joys of a future state of existence, provided for the blest and
happy! How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does
Christmas time awaken!
We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which,
year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of
the hearts that throb so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the
looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we
grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in
the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling
faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstance
connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each
recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but
yesterday. Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions
of our childish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of
his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of
miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!
* * * * *
ON GOOD WISHES AT CHRISTMAS
FRISWELL
At Christmas, which is a good holiday for most of us, but especially for
that larger and better half of us, the young, there is, as everybody
knows, a profusion of good things. The final cause of a great many
existences is Christmas Day. How many of that vast flock of geese, which
are now peacefully feeding over the long, cold wolds of Norfolk, or are
driven gabbling and hissing by the gozzard to their pasture--how many of
those very geese were called into being simply for Christmas Day! In the
towns, with close streets and fetid courts, where the flaring gas at the
corner of an alley marks the only bright spot, a gin-palace, there a
goose-club is held; and there, for a short time, is the resting-place,
side by side with a bottle of gin, of one of those wise-looking and
self-concentrated gobblers, whose name men have generally, and, as we
think, unjustly, applied to the silly one amongst themselves.
But it is only the profusion of good things, of cakes, puddings, spices,
oranges, and fruits, from sunny Italy and Spain, from India and from
Asia, from America, North and South, and even from distant Australia; it
is not that amongst us, as long ago with the _Franklin_ in Chaucer, that
at this time--
"It snowës in our house
Of meate and drinke;"
it is not that we have huge loads of beef chines, ribs, sirloins, legs,
necks, breasts, and shoulders of mutton, fillets of veal, whole hogs,
and pigs in various stages, from the tender suckling to the
stiff-jointed father of a family, whose "back hair" makes good
clothes-brushes, and whose head is brought in at college feasts; it is
not that the air gives up its choicest fowl, and the waters yield their
best fish: plentiful as these are with us, they are nothing in profusion
to the kindly greeting and good wishes that fly about in the cold
weather, and that circulate from land's end to land's end. The whole
coast of England is surrounded by a general "shake hands." The
coast-guard on their wintry walks do not greet each other more surely
than old friends all over England do: one clasps another, and another a
third, till from Dover to London and so on to York, from Yarmouth on the
east to Bristol on the west, from John O'Groat's house at the extreme
north to the Land's End, the very toe-nail of England on the south--a
kindly greeting, we may be sure, will pass. And a cheerful thing it is,
on this day of universal equality, on this day which--
"To the cottage and the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down,"
to think that we can touch and hold each other with friendly hands all
over our land. We all of us shake hands on Christmas Day. Leigh Hunt had
a quaint fancy that he had, as it were, by lineal descent, shaken hands
with Milton. He would argue thus: he knew a man who had shaken hands
with Dr. Johnson, who had clasped the hand of him who had shaken
Dryden's right hand, who himself had thus greeted Andrew Marvell, who
knew Master Elwood, the Quaker friend of Milton, who knew Milton
himself; and thus, though our Sovereign has her hand kissed, not shaken,
by her subjects, yet doubtless she will clasp the hands of her children,
who, shaking those of others, will let the greeting and the good wishes
descend to the lowest on that ladder of society which we are all trying
to climb.
As for hearty good wishes, spoken in all kinds of voices, from the
deepest bass to the shrillest treble, we are sure that they circulate
throughout the little island, and are borne on the wings of the post all
over the seas. Erasmus, coming to England in Henry VIII's time, was
struck with the deep heartiness of our wishes--good, ay, and bad too;
but he most admired the good ones. Other nations ask in their greetings
how a man carries himself, or how doth he stand with the world, or how
doth he find himself; but the English greet with a pious wish that God
may give one a good morning or a good evening, good day, or "god'd'en,"
as the old writers have it; and when we part we wish that "God may be
with you," though we now clip it into "Good b'ye."
* * * * *
A CHRISTMAS SONG
WILLIAM COX BENNETT
Blow, wind, blow,
Sing through yard and shroud;
Pipe it shrilly and loud,
Aloft as well as below;
Sing in my sailor's ear
The song I sing to you,
"Come home, my sailor true,
For Christmas that comes so near."
Go, wind, go,
Hurry his home-bound sail,
Through gusts that are edged with hail,
Through winter, and sleet, and snow;
Song, in my sailor's ear,
Your shrilling and moans shall be,
For he knows they sing him to me
And Christmas that comes so near.
* * * * *
SERY
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
With wild surprise
Four great eyes
In two small heads,
From neighboring beds
Looked out--and winked--
And glittered and blinked
At a very queer sight
In the dim starlight.
As plain as can be
A fairy tree
Flashes and glimmers
And shakes and shimmers.
Red, green and blue
Meet their view;
Silver and gold
Their sharp eyes behold;
Small moon, big stars;
And jams in jars,
And cakes, and honey
And thimbles, and money,
Pink dogs, blue cats,
Little squeaking rats,
And candles, and dolls,
And crackers, and polls,
A real bird that sings,
And tokens and favors,
And all sorts of things
For the little shavers.
Four black eyes
Grow big with surprise;
And then grow bigger
When a tiny figure,
Jaunty and airy,
(Is it a fairy?)
From the tree-top cries,
"Open wide! Black Eyes!
Come, children, wake now!
Your joys you may take now!"
Quick as you can think
Twenty small toes
In four pretty rows,
Like little piggies pink,
All kick in the air--
And before you can wink
The tree stands bare!
* * * * *
A CHRISTMAS SONG
TUDOR JENKS
When mother-love makes all things bright,
When joy comes with the morning light,
When children gather round their tree,
Thou Christmas Babe,
We sing of Thee!
When manhood's brows are bent in thought,
To learn what men of old have taught,
When eager hands seek wisdom's key,
Wise Temple Child,
We learn of Thee!
When doubts assail, and perils fright,
When, groping blindly in the night,
We strive to read life's mystery,
Man of the Mount,
We turn to Thee!
When shadows of the valley fall,
When sin and death the soul appall,
One light we through the darkness see--
Christ on the Cross,
We cry to Thee!
And when the world shall pass away,
And dawns at length the perfect day,
In glory shall our souls made free,
Thou God enthroned,
Then worship Thee.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS
(A Selection from "Dreamthorp")
ALEXANDER SMITH