For those nations of the earth which have known the story of Jesus, Christmas is undoubtedly the most beautiful time of the year. Though the celebration of the Savior's birth occurs in the dead of winter, when in many parts of the world the streams are frozen and the landscapes cold and cheerless, still there is beauty at the Christmas season--not the tender beauty of spring flowers or the quiet loveliness of the full-blown summer, or yet the sad sweet graces of autumn colors. It is beauty of another kind, richer, deeper and more elevating, that beauty which considerations of love and mercy bring before the mind.
Though we are keenly aware of the abuses that have grown up around the holiday season, we are still not willing to surrender this ancient and loved Christmas Day to the enemy. Though those purer emotions which everyone feels at Christmas are in most hearts all too fleeting, yet it is something that a lost and fallen race should pay tribute, if only for a day, to those higher qualities of the mind--love and mercy and sacrifice and a life laid down for its enemies. While men are able to rise even temporarily to such heights, there is hope that they have not yet sinned away their day of grace. A heart capable of admiring and being touched by the story of the manger birth is not yet abandoned, however sinful it may be. There is yet hope in repentance.
