Our Christmas turkey loses its taste and becomes dry fodder unless we have done something to make somebody else happy at Christmas time.
Now that is the spirit of Scouting at Christmas and at all other seasons. It was put into the Scout spirit by Baden-Powell. The implication is clear. Our happiness all year through, as Scouts, grows out of the many acts we do to bring happiness to those around us.
It is a fine thing for the Troop to engage in national or community programs of service. We should do that as good citizens. It is an even greater thing for a Patrol to single out some very human service they can perform for somebody close at hand. And when these Scouts see the smile on the face of the neighbor they have helped, then they know all about “happyfying” and their own lives are blest, too.
And the Scoutmaster, or other Unit Leader, knows about “happyfying,” for is he not making a Christmas gift to the nation every week in the year as he carries on his Scoutmastership? Thus he, himself, receives dividends the like of which no billionaire in history ever knew. So it was that one such Scoutmaster speaking at the last meeting of our National Council was able to say, “When the Scoutmaster looks around him and counts his blessings, he finds that his reward is the richest of all.”
Good Will
The youngest Cub Scout, of course, knows about good will, for does not the Law of the Pack remind him that “A Cub gives good will?” So, in the Boy Scout experience he finds that “The Scout is a friend to all and a brother to every other Scout.” As he grows older he learns more of the World Brotherhood of Scouting and finds that good will among men knows no boundaries of race or creed, or nationality.
The beloved song of the angels at Christmastime, then, is the thing that Scouting is trying to do all year round. Insofar as Scouting builds its brotherhood and gives good will all year round, will it be speeding that day of “Peace on Earth.”
★ We have it on good authority that 53% of the boys of America live “way out there,” in the little crossroads settlements and on the miles-apart farms.