This is the question given me by our worthy lecturer, and in answering the question I want to ask, why should those who profess not to believe in the existence of a Supreme Being keep it at all? What does your greeting, “I wish you a Merry Christmas,” signify to them? Nothing more than your everyday “good morning” or “good evening.”

Or, why should that other large number who believe in the existence of God, but deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, keep Christmas? What does your Christmas greeting mean to them, any more than that on a Fourth of July, or Washington’s birthday?

There are very few in Christian lands, whatever their religious beliefs, who do not keep Christmas socially. But to those the wide world over who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, divine as well as human, there must be two aspects of the question, religious and social. How shall we keep it?

The wise men, when they found him, “worshipped him; and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts.” Can we find a better example of how religiously to keep the day? It is to be feared that a great proportion of really good people read only one part of that passage, and forget that worship is the first duty, and also that the giving is exclusively to each other, and not to him. Should not those who profess to have found him also worship him, and present unto him first of all the gift of loving, loyal hearts, that can hear him say today as he said centuries ago, “In as much as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me”?

When I was a child, our Christmas always commenced by going to church on Christmas Eve, as well as on Christmas day. Every available space in the church had a wreath, a festoon, or a bough, and the church was illuminated by tallow dips furnished by the parishioners. The candles were put in holes in slats that fitted tightly into the window frames; three slats, with five or six candles in each, to each window. A huge chandelier of wood, pyramidal in shape, thickly wound with greens and lighted by nearly a hundred candles, descended from the ceiling. No scene impresses itself more indelibly upon my memory as a little child than the appearance of old Trinity as we drove to it through the village. We must go long before the hour for service, if we would get our own seat, or even be sure of any. No doubt more than 1,000 people used to attend the Christmas Eve service 50 years ago. The service was listened to by hundreds who never went into an Episcopal church at any other time, and who knew nothing of Christmas except what they saw and heard there.

After the service the candle ends were collected and the next day distributed among the poor of the parish. The element of joy and gladness, and our peace and goodwill, that does and should pervade our hearts, makes us wish to gather our dear ones around us, and make it a day of festivity; and if the day has commenced with worship, what more beautiful or fitting way in which to spend it than by gathering around the family board, and in loving companionship, and as the shades of evening draw around us, by lighting the Christmas tree, not simply for the gratification of the little ones, but for the older ones as well.

The interchange of gifts if not indulged in to such a degree that it precludes the giving where Christ would have us give is beautiful and right. It is preeminently the season for the giving of gifts.

In many a home since the last Christmas gathering, some dear one has gone out to come back no more, and the impulse to yield to sadness may be almost overpowering; but on this glad day for others, for the sake of dear ones still left, there should be no indulgence in grief. Surely there need not be to those who believe that “when he shall come again, them also that sleep in him will he bring with him.”