I have grown suddenly old. The child that used to be in me is with the ghost of Christmas Past, and I am partner now with Scrooge, taking old Marley's place. The choir may sing; but—
"The lonely mountains o'er
And the resounding shore
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament!"
I cannot hear the angels, nor see, for the flames of burning cities, their shining ranks descend the sky.
"No war, or battle's sound,
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high uphung"
on that first Christmas Eve. What has happened since then—since I was a child?—since last Christmas, when I still believed in Christmas, and sang with the choir, "Noel! Noel!"?
But I am confusing sentiment and faith. If I cannot sing peace on earth, I still believe in it; if I cannot hear the angels, I know that the Christ was born, and that Christmas is coming. It will not be a very merry Christmas; but it shall be a most significant, most solemn, most holy Christmas.
The Yule logs, as the Yule-tide songs, will be fewer this year. Many a window, bright with candles a year ago, will be darkened. There will be no goose at the Cratchits', for both Bob and Master Cratchit have gone to the front. But Tiny Tim is left, and the Christ Child is left, and my child is left, and yours—even your dear dreamchild "upon the tedious shores of Lethe" that always comes back at Christmas. It takes only one little child to make Christmas—one little child, and the angels who companion him, and the shepherds who come to see him, and the Wise Men who worship him and bring him gifts.
We can have Christmas, for unto us again, as truly as in Bethlehem of Judea, a child is born on whose shoulders shall be the government and whose name is the Prince of Peace.
Christ is reborn with every child, and Christmas is his festival. Come, let us keep it for his sake; for the children's sake; for the sake of the little child that we must become before we can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. It is neither kings nor kaisers, but a little child that shall lead us finally. And long after the round-lipped cannons have ceased to roar, we shall hear the Christmas song of the Angels.
"But see! the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest--"