We sit down conscientiously to teach our children
that, as a Christian festival, it is but adding unto sa-
cred things an idol bearing the mark of the Beast, an
idol still preserved amid the debris of institutions
that fell with the shock of the Reformation, and then
go on decorating Christmas trees and giving Christ-
mas gifts, and roasting turkeys. And when the
happy toil and laborious mirth is all over, these same
little ones find us in our own cozy rooms, buried in a
great arm chair, with our feet on the fender, tran-
quilly digesting our Christmas dinner, and reading —
Dickens' Christmas stories. As wc follow the fortunes
of little Dot or Polly, we think what a beautiful
thing Christmas is, and have no idea of being incon-
sistent. Of course not — we are never inconsistent.
But Christmas is the very heart and soul of those



Poetry and Prose of Marie R. Butler. 28 g



exquisite sermons on the text of humanity — those
sermons which rise so high above worldly philosophy
that they just touch the horizon of Divine Truth ;
and for an hour, like all the rest of the world, we
forget that Dickens is — yes, is — an apostle of hu-
manity, and not a disciple of Christ — at best but a
sweet alien voice crying in the wilderness of selfish-
ness and sin, to make the path more straight for the
second coming of the Lord.
