OCR Text |
Show Christmas Eve GrtEAT writers are prone sometimes in their lives to write Christmas Eve stories. Dickens wrote a Christmas Carol, Burns' "Cotter's Saturday Sat-urday Night" might easily be converted into a Christmas Eve poem, and now a Christmas Eve story is advertised in the east, written by a great German writer and translated by Jane Hutchins White. Christmas Eve stories, no matter how varied they may be, as all the music in the world comes from the eight notes, so these stories have no ioundation but the home circle and the mighty event which was the signal of a new birth for the world. No jnatter what men and women may read, upon them all is the thought of the babe in the manger; the star overhead; the soft light that gave the night a celestial radiance; the words of peaco and good will that fell upon the astonished shepherds, and the "Glory to God in the highest" which rang on and on, and the echoes ech-oes of which fell upon the air like a divine benediction, ben-ediction, after the supernatural lights had disappeared disap-peared and night had resumed her reign. The awe and the glory of it still is upon the hearts of men; it always will be until it rings out clear again. Of late the feeling has grown upon us that the repetition of those scenes and sounds is drawing near. We think the achievements of wireless telegraphy has added to this impression, for it has seemed to draw the invisible and visible heaven and earth nearer together, and flashes and echoes from the Beyond seem smiting the j souls of men. Again, the nations are drawing nearer to each other; the Hague Conference had i the germs of its life implanted on that first Christmas eve, and though there may still be many wars, still much heart-burning, the world is losing its old ferocity, the hospital follows closely behind the army, the prisoner of war is no longer a slave, but a guest; and soldiers in camp sing the words of peace rather than the Battle Hymn. Christmas Eve takes on new splendors with every return. |