is the music of the

Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us young,
And always keep us so.

V

Christmas and the Spirit of Democracy

[Illustration]

"Times have changed," said old Scrooge, as he sat by my fireside on
Christmas Eve. "The Christmas Carol" had been read, as our custom was,
and the children had gone to bed, so that only Scrooge and I remained to
watch the dying embers.

"Times have changed, and I am not appreciated as I was in the middle of
the last century. People don't seem to be having so good a time. You
remember the Christmas when I was converted? What larks! Up to that time
I had been 'a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,
covetous old sinner.' Those were the very words that described me. Then
the Christmas Spirit took possession of me and--presto! change! All at
once I became a new creature. I began to hurry about, giving all sorts
of things to all sorts of people. You remember how I scattered turkeys
over the neighborhood, shouting, 'Here's the turkey! Hello! Whoop! How
are you! Merry Christmas!' And then I sat down and chuckled over my
generosity till I cried. I was having the time of my life. You see, I
hadn't been used to that sort of thing, and it went to my head.

"And how grateful everybody was! They took everything in the spirit in
which it was offered, and asked no questions. Everywhere there was an
outstretched hand and a fervent God-bless-you for every gift. Nobody
twitted me about the past. I was all at once elevated to the position of
an earthly Providence.

"Talk of fun! Was there ever such a practical joke as to scare Bob
Cratchit within an inch of his life and then raise his salary before he
could say Jack Robinson! You should have seen him jump! How the little
Cratchits shouted for joy! And when the thing was written up, all
Anglo-Saxondom was smiling through its tears and saying: 'That's just
like us. God bless us, every one.'

"But it's different now. Something has got into the Christmas Spirit.
Doing good doesn't seem such a jolly thing as it once was, and you can't
carry it off with a whoop and hello. People are getting critical. In
these days a charitable shilling doesn't go so far as it used to, and
doesn't buy nearly so many God-bless-you's. You complain of the rise in
the price of the necessaries of life. It isn't a circumstance to the
increase in the cost of luxuries like benevolence.