12 pjKtyWiiburp-fjiibtt- Jjß |' // The tree shints with the candle glow, .' v « y ' X The trinkets glitter jewel-wise, \ V </j And we would that our souls might know ' The joy told in the children's eyes. \ I Such sheer delight as this of theirs — ' 1 j I j A wondrous happiness it is I * Jfl And every word the message bears: iV \ / //'I 'This is the children's day —and Hist \ \ A' / Let us come, as the Wise Men came \ \y\ \w I Those nineteen centuries agone, y VA I/I Led by the Star's eternal flame r ' • IV K\ •, That bade them rise and hasten on. J ' Jf V ) J J They brought rare frankincense and \\ \ I i %AjiJ myrrh, 1a )V Jg They brought rich gems and graven n?M mty t<u. ■/■ m $Ji They knelt, adoring, near to Her, W3 And from our hands note fall the gifts And we know why the Wise Men smiled With gratefulness; and each heart lifts Its chant of worship of the Child. Copyright by W. D. Nee bit. > \* V I r it v '- J Efe THE CHRISTMAS OF TODAY Hi dr HILE the ancient traditions of Christmas time have been handed down from genera tion to generation for hundreds o 112 years the holiday has been so mod ernized and im proved of late that naught save its an cient lore and cus toms remain. In this day the old form of celebrating <&pp> the day is seldom seen. As the yule log vanished with the advent of the stove so the simple ways which amused the youngsters of yesterday have disappeared and in their stead comes to-day an endless line of me chanical devices. The dolls of to-day open and close their eyes and even epeak; the toy steam train runs by real steam power; the miniature elec tric car is driven by real electricity; the toy animals and insects move about like real life. Now Christmas trees are purchased at the grocery etore and are illuminated at night with tiny electric lights instead of candles. Instead of popcorn balls and cornucopias of candy the tree is dec orated with Kilt and tinsel ropes and etars. More automobile horns are iieard now on- Christmas day than sleigh bells. Steam heat and elec tric radiators take the place of open fires and plenty of money makes the day even more enjoyable than ever before. Mucti Due to Electricity. Electricity, which has invaded every nook and cranny of life to-day, has assisted more than any one thing in modernizing the Christmas celebra tion. The electric cars hurry Christ mas callers from house to house. On Christinas eve the buildings and Christmas Decorations. Let the house be bright and cheer ful at Christmas, with plenty of holly and mistletoe distributed throughout. If there is a chandelier in the dining room have It hung with evergreens and holly, and from that carry long ropes of greens to each corner of the room, thus forming a canopy for the table. Fasten wreaths at all the win dows. Red and green is most appro priate for the Christmas table. In the center place a bowl tilled with red carnations surrounded with holly, and four single candles in silver or glass sticks with scarlet shades to further carry out the bright and cheering color scheme. At each place have a miniature Christmas tree to which place cards arc tied with narrow, red ribbon. If preferred the centerpiece may also be a tree of a larger size. Boxes representing Santa Clans and filled with bonbons make appropriate souvenirs, for the possession of a "sweet tooth" is by no means confined to the extremely juvenile. streets are ablaze with countless elec tric lights. Electric telephones and telegraph are wishing every one many happy returns of the day. The wire less carries "Merry Christmas" from ship to ship and the electric cable flashes the good will of governments around the earth. The new electric ovens sizzle with the roasting turkey and the electric stove is rushed to prepare the many appetizing viands, for which the day of feast calls. Electric door-bells are jingling; electrical musical instru ments furnish the music for the Christ mas carols; the electric motors, which have worked so faithfully in prepar ing the many valuable ' presents of a thousand different varieties, are en joying a day's rest after the hustling days of the holiday trade. Useful Christinas Presents. Year by year it grows more the cus tom to make Christmas presents just as useful as possible. While expense is not considered so material as it used to be it is important that the gifts should be useful as well as or namental. This is as it should be. Here again electricity funds a useful field. The development of the electric heating and cooking devices has add ed a host of valuable and useful things which are always acceptable Christ mas gifts. The electric chafing dish, electric shaving mug and electric cof fee percolator will be numbered among the most conspicuous of use. ful Christmas presents. The elec trical list also contains electric flat irons, electric cookers, luminous radi ators, massage machines, hair dryers, curling iron heaters, water heaters, tea kettles, baby milk warmer and a number of other useful things, not to mention the electric toys. This year will see less money wast ed for useless trinkets than ever be fore. Gifts from Wall Paper. Get a sample book of wall paper which can be had for the asking when the season is over. For a waste paper basket cut a pattern six inches at the top, tapering to four inches at the bot tom, and 12 inches high, which is a good size for a lady's desk. Cut four sections from cardboard and a square 4x4 inches for the bottom. Cover the outside of each piece with a pretty de sign of the wall paper, cutting the pieces a little larger than cardboard, pasting the edges onto the wrong side, use a contrasting color for the in side, plain paper is prettier and cut just the size of the section. Punch holes near the top and bottom of each piece and two on each side of the bot tom piece, near corner: tie the pieces together with baby ribbon, it requirlna about three yards. One can make dif ferent sizes, small ones for hair re ceivers or with a little pad in bottom for jewelry, also glove and handker chief boxes. Cover empty thread boxes and fill with home-made caudy. CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY DECEMBER 17, 1908. CHRISTMAS i I and\ i CIVILIZATION i dr LL Christen do in again celebrates the nativity of the foun der of the Christian faith, and the Inaug uration of the new , year. The heart yields to the pre vailing spirit and sentiment, despite intellectual dissent. Not to Qbserve, in some form, the Christmas festival is felt to do vio lence to the best instincts of humanity. This holiday eclipses all other birthdays, as the ( sun makes the electric light to oast a shadow. At this season a large majority find delight in giving. It gives occasion for springs of human kindness and good will to flow. It challenges the charge that man is innately and persistently selfish. More than is believed practice the truth that is more blessed to give than to receive. Christmas is the festival of children and women. Christ's conception of childhood and youth and his treat ment of women made it possible for them to commemorate his birthday with joy and gladness. At the out set of his career he foretold the reg nancy of the cradle and the glory of the woman. Christmas celebrates the birth of a child to whom the world owes the progress of 1,900 years, and whose work will endure so long as earth shall continue and influence oth er worlds. NINETEEN' centuries ago a peasant woman of Judea in a stable gave birth to a child destined to do the greatest possible work —to free all women from bondage and all children from slavery—the evils which dis graced past ages. Jesus' influence upon humanity as a child, a man, a teacher and as a Saviour, as one who put the eternal right of man above all established customs and precedents, is the greatest inheritance of the hu man race. The king of the Jews has become the king of the world. A He brew mind with no racial bias is now ruling the nations. The spirit of the Christ most deeply moves modern life and thought. His name has passed over our institutions and his mind has penetrated into our social and domes tic existence. The inspiration of true liberty and education, the benediction of the beautiful, the elevation of let ters, literature and morals are ascribed to him. HIS influence upon the centuries is as clearly marked as the cur rents of the Gulf Stream bring ing verdure and beauty to inhospitable shores, light to those in darkness, and making the wilderness to blossom as the rose. Innumerable poems, dramas and songs have been developed through his teaching. Art taxes itself fittingly to portray his life, architect ure struggles to build temples suitable for his worship. Universities, col leges, schools, and all systems of edu cation attempt to realize his esti mate of the dignity and worth of child hood. "Government itself," said Glad stone, "is but the translation of the teachings of Jesus Christ into human laws and institutions." His thoughts and ideas toil like a giant for man's progress. The single historic vine in Santa Barbara carried to California by a priest has changed all the industries of that land, so Christ's ideas carry energies for civilizing worlds. "As the nun upon the horizion rolls forward, pouring forth warmth out of its In visible urns, so we perceive an atmos phere of hope and joy has been poured over the continent out of the heart of Christ and those who loved him." The world celebrates at Christ mas the advent of this wonderful be ing. It looks reverently upon the face of him, the feeble infant in the man ger, and upon other children to whom he gave so much. CHILDREN and Christmas are the factors of civilization. Edmund Burke defined civilization as "the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion in a life lived in the presence of man and God." The beauty, purity, humility, faith, helplessness and the promise of chil A (Hljriatmas (Enrol m IWI he night was darker than ever I / WsyT "£ /' -IS3I When the Great I.ove came to the And laid Himself in the breath of Jj/Mk jjL Jj\ And the warmth of hay, ' UKhwIJ/iJx Andwhisperedto the Star to shine ' y r3"J\ '° blc3li ' l ' lc day dren educate the parents in affection and gentleness, and through them the community. The spring whence civ ilization flows is the Babe of Mary, and the babe in every home. The Christmas spirit incarnated in deeds of kindness, of self-forgetfulness, love, mutual helpfulness, Is the secret of Christian civilization. It will inoculate all the world with that purpose to do justice and deal kindly with our fellows. Christianity has been defined as "a beautiful civ ilization slowly journeying across the earth." It is the only civilization worthy to be named. It presents ideals, with the power to realize them. THERE were individuals who re flected ideal virtues in other periods, but were unable to mul tiply themselves, dying like Beatrice, who took her beauty, as they carried their moral excellences away with them. The first Christmas dawned on a world of selfishness and sin, and dark with folly and cruelty. There was beauty for the few, slavery, pov erty and starvation for the many, death for the unwelcome child and degradation for woman. There were 375,000 paupers in a population of 1,000,000 in Rome. It was a period of intellectual chaos, moral and social desolation, and individual hopeless ness. Into this gloom came the star of Bethlehem, beaming light, hope and sympathy. The contrast between the manger birth and the Christmas morn that will dawn this week with Its carols, songs, gifts, joy and gladness, Is the most striking contrast earth's history holds. With that first Christmas childhood became sweet and sacred, woman was crowned queen of the heart and home, the slave made free, the ignorant, poor and wretched found education, shelter and sympathy, and the joy of gener osity became contagious. As the sun rises earlier and lingers longer than yesterday so the spirit of Christmas will usher in the golden age of happi ness and good will. In the great pic ture of Coreggio the light on the face of the babe lends a glow to shepherd and wise men. The Christmas spirit lends a glow to all the instruments and forces of society. WHILE humanity falls below the ideal, the effort to practice it is not wholly nugatory. The "drift of the world is upward." The people are climbing. Interest in chil dren is increasing. Woman is coming to her own. Labor is entering the reward of work. War is becoming unpopular. Racial prejudice will hide in shame. The Christ spirit is vic torious. God's good will becomes tri umphant in home, street and legis lative hall. The triumphs of the past dictate new struggles for the future. When Pericles gave his oration over the Athenian dead, pointing to the graves, the great orator said: "Their silence is eloquent! These heroes ask us togo and live for the city for which they died." Thus past achievements pledge us to fresh fidelity. Christ mas asks us to lend tjie impulse of a new love to home, school, street and city; to be a friend of the friendless, a benefactor to some dumb beast or deserted child, to be voice for the dumb, eyes for the blind, springs of water for the thirsty, trees of shade for the weary, food for the hungry, refuge for the smitten. Be an angel of mercy, bringing "peace on earth and good will toward men," and thus hasten a Christmas which will not simply come to-mor row, but will stay all the year. Christmas Salad. For a Christmas salad select the largest and brightest red apples, and cut a deep slice from each at the stem end. Scoop out the pulp; drop both the covers and apples into cold water and leave them until needed. Cut crisp celery into small pieces with one-third the quantity of English wal nuts or pecans broken; mix with very stiff mayonnaise. Wipe and polish each apple and fill with the salad, fitting each cover carefully, and set on a bed of crisp lettuce leaves just before serving. IT was an uncom monly lute hour when Dan Derrick set out to get some thing for a Christ- mas dinner. The bell in the village church chimed twelve, and the sounds came float ing on the cold, still air of the forest. "'Tis a fine night for rabbiting, eh, Rough?" said Dan to his dog, as lie came to a warren. "But bide a minute," he added. His eye had been attracted by a little ( mountain ash growing above the warren, i Being a young tree, it had not lost its red, ' autumnal leaves, and it was laden with berries. ; "Now. that would make a pretty Christ- ; mas-tree for the little ones," lie said. He pulled it up by its roots from the I loose earth, and put it under a neighbor- i ing oak. i Taking a net out of his pocket, he fixed it round some of the rabbit-holes in the warren, and said to the dog : "Now round 'em up, lad; round 'em up!" i Rough knew his work well. He raced i like a black shadow across the moonlit waste of snow, to the nearest field of winter cabbages, and there he silently routed out the rabbits, and sent them helter-skelter i back to their holes. "Drat the net!" said Dan, springing out from behind the oak. Somehow he had not fixed it firmly, and i the rabbits knocked it over and escaped. Only one pot entangled in the loose meshes. "One wild rabbit isn't much of a Christ mas feast for man and wife and five little ones," said Dan ruefully, as he threw it beside the mountain ash, "Ah, ha! I've caught you red-handed this time, Dan!" The poacher turned, and found a keep er watching him. "I'm only after a rabbit," he xclaimed. | "Yes," said the keeper;' "I've been tracking you in the hopes that you were after the deer again. But it doesn't matter. Soon as Christmas is over I'll have you up for it." He walked away, leaving Dan Derrick in a state of hopeless misery. This capped it all. Dan was a wood-cutter. But the winter before his right arm had been crushed by a falling tree, and he had lost the use of it. With the help of ( Rough, however, he had managed, since this accident, just to keep his wife and chil dren from starving. Now all that was over. The magistrate ( would impose a line on him, and, having no money to pay it, he would be sent to prison. What would become of his wife and the five little ones?. "Well," he said, with anl attempt at cheerfulness, "I won't spoil their Christmas by telling them of what's waiting for me a couple o' days after." He returned home by the way he came, and picked up the rabbit and the moun tain ash, and went to bed without saying anything to his wife. It was to the merrymaking by candlelight that they all looked forward. The morn ing they spent in gathering holly, and the afternoon in decking the cottage with it; and Dan himself forgot his troubles in a secret work of decoration. Shutting him self in the shed, he planted the mountain ash in a deep box filled with leaf mould, and clipped off a few unsightly leaves and tied bits of gayly colored paper on the branches. When the rabbit pie was at last placed on the table in the full light of the solitary candle, he told his two eldest boys to bring in something which they would find in the shed. In the meantime his wife, Doll, served him with some of the pie. But with the first piece of rabbit that he ate, tho thought of his misfortune overcame him, and he burst into tears, and told his wife what had happened. She took the news in a very strange way. "That, that!" she cried wildly, pointing to the mountain ash, which the boys were bringing in. "You pulled that up? Oh. now I understand I Now I understand! 'Tisn't the first fairy tree you've hurt. What were you doing last winter when the elm fell on your arm? Oh, you mad, senseless man!" She covered her face with her hands and wept, rocking herself to and fro in utter grief. Dan gazed at her blankly. Even now he didn't un derstand what she was raving about. Was tho thought of his misfortune driving her out of her mind? It was bad enough, surely, but she needn't take it in that man ner. He came and sat beside her, and bent tenderly over her, and tried to comfort her. "Look at the Christ mas-tree, mammyl" shouted the children, dancing with delight and clapping their hands. '' Look at the Christmas-tree, dad- Oh, isn't it lovely!" I EDWARD WRJGHT The wife and husband looked up in astonishment. The berries on the mountain ash were plowing with a deep, soft, red light. Ihe tree seemed to be hung with lamps carved out of large round rubies. The inexpressibly beautiful ra diance grew richer and fuller and brighter, flooding all the room, and transfiguring, with its strange rose red tint, the wondering faces oi man, woman and children. "Listen!" said Peggy, who had the quick, fresh sense of a wood land child. Music sounded faintly in th« distance, and then came nearer and nearer. Peggy ran to the door and unlatched it, and into the room there swept a troop of pretty little forest elves. They wers all clad in Lincoln-green, ex cept their Queen, and she wore sl bodice and a kirtle of .... .... cilb- pure, snowy silk, with a girdle of gold and a golden hem. "Thank you so of the cold and the snow. It will be much nicer for us to dance by a warm fire this weather than out in the chill forest." "I'm sorry we've nothing of a supper for you, ma'am," said Doll Derrick. "But if you'd care to taste our rabbit pie?" i "Nol no!" said the Queen of the Elves, touching the table with her wand. "You. must permit me to provide a feast for you. this Christmas." The table at once became covered with, a splendid dinner. There were roast turkey,, and Christmas pudding and grapes, and nuts and sweets, and boxes of crackers, and. every good thing, in fact, that the heart ot man could wish for.i "Now," said the Queen of the Elves,, "while you are all enjoying yourselves we will do our Christmas homage to the I-adjr of the Mountain Ash. Strike up, my merry harpers!" Four little men, with four little harps* sat down by the fire, and began to make &< sweet, faery music, and the Queen and then other elves took hold of hands, and danced: round the red-lighted mountain ash. And as they danced they sang. If there was one thing that little Peggy- Derrick liked even more than Christmas, pudding it was dancing; and there was, bo sides, a strange and de licious charm in the music that the elfin harpers were playing. "Oh, let's go and dance, tool" she cried, "and finish the feast afterwards.' She pot down from the table, and her four i brothers fol lowed. Then her mother came, and at last Dan himself, now trembling with anxiety, joined them. As they whirled round, the lights on the mountain ash grew dim, and about the tree a soft incense gathered, and took on the form of a lady of wild, un speakable beauty, clad in vapory, trailing robes. When the dancers gave over, she was standing besid® the tree in the center of the ring, and gazing at Dan Derrick. There was a kindness in her glance, but, for all that, poor Dan's knees shook under him. "Well, all's well that ends well,"' she said. "But you were a very bold man, Dan, to bring me into your house in so unceremonious a T 1,,.l V.-.lf o minrl In slow »nn fashion. I had halt a mina to slay you outright last niglit!" Dan then had a glorious inspiration. "It was well for you that you didn't hurt me, ma'am." he said very respectfully, yet firmly. "Look what I've cone for you already. Some rabbit had burrowed under your tree, and the earth was so loose there that down you would surely have come in the next gale. You oughtn't to have set that keeper on me, you know." "Yes: I'm sorry now for that," said tbe Lady of the Tree. "But hurry back at once to the spot from which you took me, and dig there and take what you find." Away went Dan with a spade, and the Lady of the Tree and the Queen of tbe Elves began to talk together. When Dan returned, carrying, with some difficulty, a heavy sack on his shoulder, be heard the Lady say to the Elfin Queen: "Yes, I think you are right. The motor cars are a great nuisance. A quiet orchard on the skirts of the forest would be the very place for us." "I know of a fine fruit-farm for sale, ma'am," said Dan. "And, from what I can see, there's plenty of money in this sack to buy it." "Very well; buy it, my friend," said the Lady of the Tree, "and plant the mountain ash there; and the elves and I will look after the fruit for you." Before departing back into the fairy tree, she stroked Dan's arm; and he was'able to open the door with it as he said good-night to the Queen of the Elves and her troop. Dan now grows the best apples in New England, and he has a very good crop of them in tbe worst season. "I say, Mr. Der rick," said a stranger one day, "why don't you root up that use less mountain ash in the center there?" "Oh, that's what some folks call a fairy treel" said Dan. "They say It brings a man luck." Copyriiht, IBBt TREE A Xma'o Fairy StbryS*- Chlldren by much."she said to Dan, "for bringing the fairy tree in out
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers