XII. [A Prayer for the New Year]
Foreword
It has been a habit of mine, for some years, to send an annual Christmas greeting to my friends in the form of a little poem. Of the following selections most have been published in the annual Christmas number of the Town-Crier of Seattle, whose editors kindly permit their reproduction. They are reprinted because some have liked one or other of the poems sufficiently well to request this; also because I feel that the treatment of the Christmas story may be fresh enough and varied enough to win the liking of some others. H.H.G.
The Christmas Message
The story is told that when King Edward I of England sought to reconcile the Welsh people to his rule he presented to the assembled chiefs his baby son, just born in Caernarvon Castle, as a native son of Wales to be their prince. The king manifested in the act a very sound appreciation of what is, according to the Christmas story, the heart of the divine method for reconciling a rebellious world to God. For the divine fact which makes the Christmas festival so dear to all alike, and draws together them that are afar off and them that are nigh is nothing less than that the Child who comes to reign in a world of human hearts is truly named the Son of Man.
That the jarring interests of a warring world may be brought together in one common devotion to the best is always plain when we substitute the child attitude for the selfish and sophisticated ideas of men soiled by too long contact with material things. And when men return to the child mind, with its simplicity, its purity, and its ready response to love, the world will certainly be a little nearer to that emulous heaven which yearns downward to touch the earth as the earth at Christmas time seems to be doing its best to reach the skies. The celebration of such a truth is the best antidote for the horrible doctrine of an absentee God and of a humanity left to wander unaided in the dark.
In the great temple, Shi Tenno-ji, in Osaka, is the shrine of the Guiding Bell. The rope is made up of the bibs of dead children, and little Japanese go thither in order that by ringing the bell they may help and be helped along the road to Paradise. The Christmas bells are always guiding bells to all mankind. Wherever they ring, whether they sound only in the imagination which carries us back to the days of long ago, they summon man unfailingly to a Paradise wherein all may become as little children in the spirit of faith and hope and love.
And wherever these bells are heard the heart will never cease to sing and dance away the dust of the world and charm men from the sordidness which keeps us back from entry within the gates of gold.
"A little child shall lead them"—this is the veridical prophecy of the good days to come. In fulfilment of such a prophecy let us share the good-heartedness and charity of the Christmas season. Let us lend our ears to hear once more the song which, though it comes from heaven through the voice of angels, has its message for the souls of men on earth. Let us turn our backs upon the selfish and the discordant till the angelic anthem is echoed back with human voice to the Throne of God. Then heaven and earth shall have become one indeed.