OCR Text |
Show ! Widen worth as the miner has found blackened, bleak and forbidding hillside to be threshold of worlds of gleaming gold. He that receives inis P i ft comes to himself to find himself in a friendly world. It is a gift greatly to be desired, as a fire in winter, a friend in misfortune; and by its magic are miracles wrought on those who dwell far from the kingdom king-dom of the Saint Good Will. And the second gift is like unto it a mild spirit of amnesty toward all pilgrims whose faulty compass takes i them astray, and those wuo receive it are straightway inducted into the Order of the Forgivers. It strikes from the pilgrim as in the twinkling of an eye, the cold bonds of hatred, vengeance, and all the brood of mal ice, which make their home with a man but to destroy him. And the third gift is the Just Judgment, Judg-ment, by which the world is vastly lightened by reason of the number of condemnations being lessened. For as Is the number of those we condemn in this wortd, so is the number of disappointments we carry about with us, and the number of the sunny windows we have darkened for ourselves. our-selves. There are lights of life which a just judgment forbears to extinguish, extin-guish, and he who bears this gift walks In a mellow circle sf serene tolerance. And the fourth gift Is tbit of the Cheerful Spirit, having which one has light at eventide, yen and at midnight. For there is no darkness like unto the darkness of the spirit bereft of cheerful lamps and fires, and there is no darkness of the spirit that the St. Good Will cannot dispel. And when the pilgrim has received these gifts he finds among them another, an-other, which is the gift of Vision, whereby he sees the unseen. Indeed, all the gifts of St. Good Will pertain, to sight and vision, for as the physical physi-cal eye is the chief of the body's blessings, so is the gift of vision the saver of life, which possessing, no man perishes. For as blind men walk the way and see neither rivers nor trees nor men, so he who has not received these best of gifts walks in great blindness toward a world which encompasses en-compasses him with beneficence, guidance, guid-ance, protection and inspiration. Arid when the pilgrims sailed on, lo! they were new mortals. And no matter mat-ter how great the distance they journeyed, jour-neyed, the pleasant gales of Christmas Christ-mas isle were always in tblr nostrils. nos-trils. And they went to many lands, but wherever they set foot, or built a booth or raised a tent, the people knew they had been to the Blessed isle. And Christmas trees sprang as seedlings from the Tree of Life, and many kindnesses to friends and the poor were borne abroad on the wings of sweetness and light which forever came forth from the gifts of St. Good Will. Detroit. Xows. j V-. v t-rT ---".'.N ,- i Land of Fond Memories and Home of Saint Good Will. A (S"S3HEX' a3 we 3our" .' ' H neved eastward to the Land of Hearts 7??nv M Desire, we came to ' an 's'an( which is i-i.-oaK" called Christmas, fls n ikS where all good pil-- pil-- ' D grims go ashore. 9 have ventured far J-ctfoN. from tlleir co,lrse' rtf'j&JbZ or have no liking rt Q Xj??' t0 company with Wt V their Allows, sail I'iVwX on to the north, .!-i!'iv;:'-: which is a chilly sea, or to the south, where the blast is not tempered. For Christmas Island lies straight in the way of the honest mariner, and the stream which runs as a river through the sea hath warmth and fragrance, whereof the shores of the island give pleasant evidence. Now, the gales that sweep the island sweep westward upon the approaching pilgrims, and eastward upon the departing sails, so that the stay within the gracious port Is but a part of the joy of that sea. And as the shores came out of the horizon, a little child called, "Christmas "Christ-mas Isle! Christmas Isle!" so clear Is the air of these parts to infant eyes. And the older folk aboard were Joyful, too, for off the west coast of the island, which those who have charted these seas call the Shore of Memory, a fragrant breeze began that minute to blow; though of these names I cannot be sure, for the child had a book of his own wherein this shore was named Anticipation. And now the journey meant a few mm 3 dawns and sunsets ere a landing could be made, but with each league onward the mellow fragrance was more marked. mark-ed. So there was great dispute among the elder folk to say just what made up the pleasant assault upon our senses, some saying it was composed mostly of this, and others of that. "It Is lavender," said an old lady. "Lavender and spruce and burning candles. I remember the night the sew dress w.as taken from the chest, and we danced beneath the candles, and there was mistletoe, my dear, . . . that was how I met your grandfather. grand-father. Yes, the breeze from off the shore of the Isle is lavender and pruce and burning candles." "Ho! to me!" cried a bluff and hearty man. "It is the good smr.ll ot well-warmed horses on the snow, with tha ivoon making a double teari of them. "And it is the pood dry smell of popp-u. corn a:.d ccol-.ing apples. Oh, yes, and I vill lit mying there's phe brown turkey in it, too. And the mell of a lantern in the barn when we go out to get the horses after the dance." "Ah," said another and as I looked I saw he was habited as a priest. "It is the incense, the Christmas incense, which goes in ghostly columns to the darkened roof of the great church as the Three Wise Men go in procession proces-sion up the aisle attended by acolytes and hooded nuns to do homage to the Babe at the altar. Easter I knew by the lilies which smother the incense, hut Christmas is incense and music. It is that which makes the breeze so delightful to you, my good people." "No," said another, "No, no. Ah now I know what it is. It is back In the hill kirk that we are, where the foot-warmers keep us alive through the Christmas, and it's the faint scorching cf honest leather and the faint singeing of homespun that the breeze is bringing you." "It's candy! It's varnish on sleds! It's perfume on dolls! It's oranges,' and evergreens, and the smell of the Wood fire in the fireplace, and the. smell of the cold on mother's furs!" cried the child. And I know not to what lengths the talk might have gone, but the sailors were calling "Shore!" and there was great motion among the pilgrims. Now, the island is ruled by a saint whose names are many, but in all tongues and races they have one meaning, which is GOOD WILL. And his name is the law of the isle. For he holdeth that if a man hath Good Will he fulfilleth all law; and if he have not Good Will no law can put it within him; but if he have it he cannot but give proof of it. So that there is great giving of gifts in the island called Christmas, for Good Will is itself a gift which forever branches and blossoms and sets to fruit of its kind. And it is the custom cus-tom of the saint to meet the pilgrim 6hip.s and give those who call upon him the choicest gifts, and when a man hath received any one of them he is forever a citizen of the island called Christmas, with all the rights thereof. Now, the gifts are hung upon a tree which is called the Tree of Life and they shine with a wonderful light and give off a sweetness which in good time will sweeten the world. Indeed, as all pilgrims know, the reason that shores far distant from the Christmas Isle are habitable at all is that pil-. grims have come back bearing their gifts of sweetness and light. And the first gift is the Gift of the Good Thought, whereby one may break the hold of a narrow veracity ivhich chains him, truthfully enough but all too unwisely, to the faults of his fellows. There are neither riches nor power comparable to the Good Thought, which comes of the Good Sight, whereby men have discovered t |