Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all
our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek;
bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped
everything and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture
shining in our bright young eyes, complete.
Time came, perhaps, all so soon, when our thoughts
over-leaped that narrow boundary; when there was some one (very dear, we
thought then, very beautiful, and absolutely perfect) wanting to the fullness
of our happiness; when we were wanting too (or we thought so, which did just as
well) at the Christmas hearth by which that some one sat; and when we
intertwined with every wreath and garland of our life that some one's name.
That was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which
have long arisen from us to show faintly, after summer rain, in the palest
edges of the rainbow! That was the time for the beatified enjoyment of the
things that were to be, and never were, and yet the things that were so real in
our resolute hope that it would be hard to say, now, what realities achieved
since, have been stronger!
What! Did that Christmas never really come when we and the
priceless pearl who was our young choice were received, after the happiest of
totally impossible marriages, by the two united families previously at
daggers--drawn on our account? When brothers and sisters-in-law who had always
been rather cool to us before our relationship was affected, perfectly doted on
us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us with unlimited incomes? Was
that Christmas dinner never really eaten, after which we arose, and generously
and eloquently rendered honor to our late rival, present in the company, then
and there exchanging friendship and forgiveness, and founding an attachment,
not to be surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death? Has
that same rival long ceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married
for money, and become usurious? Above all, do we really know, now, that we
should probably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that
we are better without her?
That Christmas when we had recently achieved so much fame;
when we had been carried in triumph somewhere, for doing something great and
good; when we had won an honored and ennobled name, and arrived and were
received at home in a shower of tears of joy; is it possible that THAT
Christmas has not come yet?
And is our life here, at the best, so constituted that,
pausing as we advance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this
great birthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and
full as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have been and
still are? If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to the conclusion
that life is little better than a dream, and little worth the loves and
strivings that we crowd into it?
No! Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader,
on Christmas Day! Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit,
which is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of
duty, kindness and forbearance! It is in the last virtues especially, that we
are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of our youth;
for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal gently even with the
impalpable nothings of the earth!
Therefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that
the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring,
expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places
by the Christmas hearth.
Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent
fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived
you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks
among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real
to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do
we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering
like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this
boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old
romantic time, but bright with honor and with truth. Around this little head on
which the sunny curls lie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as
when there was no scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of
our first-love. Upon another girl's face near it--placider but smiling
bright--a quiet and contented little face, we see Home fairly written. Shining
from the word, as rays shine from a star, we see how, when our graves are old,
other hopes than ours are young, other hearts than ours are moved; how other ways
are smoothed; how other happiness blooms, ripens, and decays--no, not decays,
for other homes and other bands of children, not yet in being nor for ages yet
to be, arise, and bloom and ripen to the end of all!
Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what
never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to
your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open- hearted! In
yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy's face?
By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of
such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise,
unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him. On this day we shut out Nothing!
"Pause," says a low voice. "Nothing?
Think!"
"On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside,
Nothing."
"Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered
leaves are lying deep?" the voice replies. "Not the shadow that
darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?"
Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our
faces towards that City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring
those we loved, among us. City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are
gathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us
according to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people who are
dear to us!
Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight, so
solemnly, so beautifully among the living children by the fire, and can bear to
think how they departed from us. Entertaining angels unawares, as the
Patriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious of their guests; but we
can see them--can see a radiant arm around one favorite neck, as if there were
a tempting of that child away. Among the celestial figures there is one, a poor
misshapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said
it grieved her much to leave him here, alone, for so many years as it was
likely would elapse before he came to her-- being such a little child. But he
went quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in her hand she leads him.
There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning
sand beneath a burning sun, and said, "Tell them at home, with my last
love, how much I could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented
and had done my duty!" Or there was another, over whom they read the
words, "Therefore we commit his body to the deep," and so consigned
him to the lonely ocean and sailed on. Or there was another, who lay down to
his rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O
shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time!
There was a dear girl--almost a woman--never to be one--who
made a mourning Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the
silent City. Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not
be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness? O look upon her now!
O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her happiness! The
daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she, more blest, has heard
the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise for ever!"
We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with
whom we often pictured the changes that were to come upon our lives, and
merrily imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we
came to be old. His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him in
his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would his love
have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother,
husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places
in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of
immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!
The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea
it makes a rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few
more moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in
the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly-diffused town, and in the
quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut
in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass, entwined with lowly
brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and
windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there
are joyful faces, there is healthy music of voices. Be all ungentleness and
harm excluded from the temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances
admitted with tender encouragement! They are of the time and all its comforting
and peaceful reassurances; and of the history that re-united even upon earth
the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that too
many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.
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