The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.

What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.

Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

Nothing taken for granted; everything received with gratitude; everything passed on with grace.

If a man called Christmas Day a mere hypocritical excuse for drunkenness and gluttony, that would be false, but it would have a fact hidden in it somewhere. But when Bernard Shaw says the Christmas Day is only a conspiracy kept up by poulterers and wine merchants from strictly business motives, then he says something which is not so much false as startling and arrestingly foolish. He might as well say that the two sexes were invented by jewellers who wanted to sell wedding rings.

When you with velvets mantled o'er, Defy December's tempests frore, Oh! spare one garment from your store, To clothe the poor at Christmas.

Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.