What becomes of Christmas when the day is gone? It is the gladdest day of the year. It is celebrated in all Christian lands. The churches observe it, sometimes with great pomp and splendour, with stately music and elaborate ceremonial, sometimes in simple, homely worship. It is kept in homes, with happy greetings and good wishes, and universal giving of gifts. Every one, even the miser, grows generous at the Christmas-tide. Men who are ordinarily cold and unmoved toward human need wax warm-hearted in these glad days. People everywhere rise to a high tide of kindly feeling. There is scarcely a home anywhere, however lowly, which the Christmas sentiment does not reach with its kindliness. Public institutions, — orphanages, hospitals, homes, prisons, refuges, reformatories, — all feel themselves touched as by a breath of heaven, for the one day.
What becomes of all the gladness when Christmas is over? Does it stay in the life of the community afterward? Do we have it in our homes the next day and the next week? Do we feel it in the atmosphere of our churches? Does it stay in the hearts of people in general? Do the carols sing on next day? Does the generous kindness continue in the people’s hearts? Does the love in homes rich and poor abide through the winter?
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