hing shines and sings: self-giving, joy giving, a vast, dim
upflickering on humanity of what this thing really is that it seeks to
observe, this thing that grips men so that no matter what they are
about, they will drop it at the touch of the gong and turn to some
expression, however crooked and thwarted, of the real spirit of the
time. If in war, then bayonets are stacked and holly-wreathed, and
candles stuck on each point! If at sea, some sailor climbs out on the
bowsprit with a wreath of green. If on the western plains, a turkey
wishbone for target will make the sport, at fifty paces; if at home,
some great extravagance or some humble gift or some poignant wish will
point the day; if at church, then mass and carol; in certain hearts,
reverence,--everywhere the time takes hold of folk and receives whatever
of greatness or grotesqueness they choose to give it.... So, too, the
actual and vital experience which it brings to humanity is universal, is
offered with cosmic regularity, cannot be escaped. Through all the
tumult of the time, Christmas Week and the time that lies near to it is
always waiting to claim its own, to take to itself those who will not be
deceived, who see in the stupendous yearly pageant only the usual
spectacle of humanity trying to say divine things in terms of things
physical, because the time for the universal expression is not yet come.

When that time comes ... when the time of the worship of _things_ shall
be past; when the tribal sense of holiday shall have given place to the
family sense, and that family shall be mankind; when shall never be seen
the anomaly of celebrating in a glorification of little family
tables--whose crumbs fall to those without--the birth of him who
preached brotherhood; and the mockery of observing with wanton spending
the birth of him who had not where to lay his head; when the rudiments
of divine perception, of self-perception, of social perception, shall
have grown to their next estate; when the area of consciousness shall be
extended yet farther toward the outermost; when that new knowledge with
which the air is charged shall let man begin to know what he is ... when
that time comes, they will look back with utmost wonder at our uncouth
gropings to note and honour something whose import we so obscurely
discern; but perhaps, too, with wonder that so much of human love and
divining should shine for us through the mists we make.

X

Two days before Christmas