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Show -v CHRISTMAS. : '"And suddenly there was with the angel a mul titude of the heavenly host, praising God and taying ' :Glory to God in the highest, and on v earth , peace, good will toward men." More than nineteen hundred years ago a little band of shepherds, watching their Hocks near Bethlehem in Judea, saw the heavenly host and heard their hymn of rejoicing. Blessed though they were above their fellow men, those shepherds c,ould have had but little real appreciation of the magnitude of the event heralded by the. angels. That day had been born a child who would affect ; the destinies of all the world. The time was coming when the babe who lay i:t the manger in Bethlehem would give light and hope and faith to countless millions.- Because he was born men and women hare gone unflinchingly, even smilingly, 'into the great beyond, secure in the knowledge that lie would redeem His won-j won-j ; derful promises. "In my Father's house are many j mansion!?," He said. "I go to prepare a place for I : ; ' .vou-" " I Through the long centuries has come down to us' the story of the Christ and the' wonderful era If of love ancl forgiveness that was born with him. It i 1 , . - is the one story in nil the world that has lost noth- ; , lug in the telling, the one story that does not lose M s - ' interest through repetition, the one story that is if a!;v::y new. "Next Monday, nineteen hundred and ! ! five v.--r,c after the s'cno on the hills; do. tlie birth i I; ' . ' in the -manger, thu Chii-i'u:: world is cc-i -'orating ' the advent of the Child into a world that His I, coming blessed as nothing before nor since has j blessed this. gray old sphere. "We are too apt in the joy of the celebration, in the giving and receiving of' gifts that makes the day one of peculiar happiness, to forget the reason rea-son for the celebration. Too few of us remember j to give thanks to and for the Christ that made this happiness possible. And too many of us, alas, forget for-get His great injunction, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my children, ye do it unto : me."' - v Let us remember on Christmas day the poor j and the afflicted, the widow and the fatherless. : There is not one who reads these lines who cannot j parry joy into some household where joy might be i , absent, but for your effort. Try it, and our word for it,' the pet, will brighter your own Christmas immeasurably. |