eficent and consolatory factor in our lives."

"That is because you have not allowed me to conclude," the unreal editor
protested, when the Easy Chair cut in with,

"There is nothing I would so willingly allow you to do," and "laughed
and shook" as if it had been "Rabelais's easy chair."

The unreal editor thought it best to ignore the untimely attempt at wit.
"The difficulty in this case with both the father and the children was
largely temperamental; but it was chiefly because of a defect in their
way of thinking about Christmas. It was a very ancient error, by no
means peculiar to this amiable family, and it consisted in thinking
about Christmas with reference to one's self instead of others."

"Isn't that rather banal?" the Easy Chair asked.

"Not at all banal," said the unreal editor, resisting an impulse to do
the Easy Chair some sort of violence. At the same time he made his
reflection that if preachers were criticised in that way to their faces
there would shortly be very few saints left in the pulpit. He gave
himself a few moments to recover his temper, and then he went on: "If
Christmas means anything at all, it means anything but one's own
pleasure. Up to the first Christmas Day the whole world had supposed
that it could be happy selfishly, and its children still suppose so. But
there is really no such thing as selfish, as personal happiness."

"Tolstoy," the Easy Chair noted.

"Yes, Tolstoy," the unreal editor retorted. "He more than any other has
brought us back to the knowledge of this truth which came into the world
with Christmas, perhaps because he, more than any other, has tried to
think and to live Christianity. When once you have got this vital truth
into your mind, the whole universe is luminously filled with the
possibilities of impersonal, unselfish happiness. The joy of living is
suddenly expanded to the dimensions of humanity, and you can go on
taking your pleasure as long as there is one unfriended soul and body in
the world.

"It is well to realize this at all times, but it is peculiarly fit to do
so at Christmas-time, for it is in this truth that the worship of Christ
begins. Now, too, is the best time to give the Divine Word form in deed,
to translate love into charity. I do not mean only the material charity
that expresses itself in turkeys and plum-puddings for the poor, but
also that spiritual charity which takes thought how so to amend the
sorrowful conditions of civilization tha