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Christmas Builders




BOOKS BY DR. JEFFERSON


  THE CHARACTER OF JESUS
  DOCTRINE AND DEED
  THE MINISTER AS PROPHET
  THE NEW CRUSADE
  QUIET HINTS TO GROWING PREACHERS
  QUIET TALKS WITH EARNEST PEOPLE
  THINGS FUNDAMENTAL
  MY FATHER’S BUSINESS

         *       *       *       *       *

  CHRISTMAS BUILDERS
  FAITH AND LIFE
  THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW
  THE WORLD’S CHRISTMAS TREE


  THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
  NEW YORK

[Illustration: To him undoubtedly has God committed the secret of
Christmas]




[Illustration:

  _Christmas
  Builders_

  BY

  CHARLES EDWARD
  JEFFERSON

  [Illustration: Decoration]

  _New York_
  _Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
  Publishers_
]




  COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

  PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1909


  D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON




Christmas Builders


There was trouble in the land, all on account of Christmas. Men
stood bewildered and women were distracted, not knowing what to do.
The trouble was that Christmas had become too small. Once there was
room enough in it and to spare. Only a few of the inhabitants of the
earth brought their treasures into it. But little by little the world
learned of the beauty of Christmas until everybody, almost, wanted to
get into it, and not only into it himself, but he wanted to bring all
his relatives and friends, every one of them laden with packages and
bundles, until at last Christmas became crowded to suffocation. There
was not room to turn round. Everybody was so huddled and jostled, and
there was so much scrambling and pushing, that some people quite
lost their temper, and even in the palace of Christmas looked sour.

It seems strange that the world should be embarrassed and really
injured by a desire of people to be loving and to manifest their
love by giving gifts, and yet that is the very thing which happened.
Christmas became a breeder and disseminator of dark and ugly
feelings. It is well enough when only a few people make up their
mind to be affectionate and generous; but when everybody decides to
put on the Christmas graces on the same day of the year, the world
cannot stand the strain of so much goodness all at once expressed,
and the result is a tragedy almost as deep and dark for many hearts
as if there were no Christmas at all. For in their eagerness to keep
Christmas, men forgot the claims of brotherhood. They were so
zealous to get into the enchanted palace themselves that they forgot
all about their neighbors, who wanted to get in also.

[Illustration: Men forgot the claims of brotherhood]

One cannot very well manufacture gifts himself, and therefore some
one else must make them. One cannot carry gifts himself,—at least
not all of them,—and therefore some one else must carry them. As
Christmas was just a day and as it came only once a year, all the
days preceding Christmas became frenzied and feverish, and men and
women by the thousands were compelled to work so fast and through
such long hours that they were not able to reach the palace at all.
They had their faces in the direction of it, but they were all so
jaded and out of breath that when the palace came in sight they had
not energy sufficient to enjoy the beauty of it, and could only look
on half dazed and benumbed at the more fortunate mortals who had been
able to get inside of its golden doors.

Letter-carriers, knowing by experience what Christmas really was,
began to lament long before the month of December came, seeing in
their imagination the huge bundles of letters and papers and packages
which must be carried up the crowded roadway of the days which led to
the Christmas palace. Expressmen also never spoke enthusiastically
of Christmas, but scowled at the mere mention of it, as though it
were a prison instead of a palace, a sort of punishment which was
inexorably inflicted on them at the end of every year. Dressmakers
were also sickened even by the thought of Christmas, for just before
that beautiful day every woman wanted a new coat or a new waist or
a new skirt, and everybody wanted it at once, so that she would be
ready for Christmas, the result being that the dressmakers and all
the girls in their shops were so driven and so roundly scolded by
impatient and sharp-tongued customers that it was really difficult
on the twenty-fifth of December to feel charitable and forgiving and
kind to all. Christmas Day was a palace filled with beautiful sights
and sounds, but the fact is that many people never got into it, but
sat down fagged and despondent at the door. Clerks in the big stores
had no good word for Christmas, notwithstanding its beauty and its
hallowed associations. Some of them, I fear, hated it, especially
the young women clerks, for the hours were so long and the crowds
in the store were so big and the air was so bad, and so many of the
people were so unreasonable and inconsiderate and crotchety, and the
cars at evening were so crowded and the nights seemed so short, that
clerks were heard saying to one another, “Won’t you be glad when
Christmas is over?”

Many children even grew to be afraid of Christmas. They dreaded it
as though it were a huge goblin or monster casting a shadow over
the days which preceded it. The little delivery boys at the grocery
stores became so weary lugging good things for Christmas dinners that
they could not laugh real heartily or enjoy their own dinner when
Christmas Day came. It was so late the night before when the last
basket was delivered that the boys fell into a sleep too deep even
for dreams. They lost the rare and radiant pleasure which is the
birthright of boys,—the joy of dreaming of what a good time is coming
on Christmas. And as for the little girls who worked all day long
tying up bundles in the basements of the great stores, they did their
best to keep alive in their hearts a genuine love of the birthday of
Jesus, but, alas, in many cases their heroic efforts were in vain. “I
just hate Christmas!” said one little girl to another at the end of a
long and wearisome day.

Things have indeed come to a tragic pass when a thought of the one
most splendid and gorgeous day of the entire year quenches the
sparkle in a child’s eyes and crushes every feeling of ecstatic
anticipation out of a child’s heart. It was indeed a spectacle
to cause one to stop and ponder, this widespread shrinking and
shuddering at the very thought of Christmas, this long-drawn sigh of
relief when Christmas was really over.

And when I looked around and saw how all the days immediately
preceding Christmas were thrown into tumult and confusion in which
thousands of men and women and boys and girls were wounded, and many
of them hurt with an injury that was deep; and when I looked at the
days succeeding Christmas and saw them covered with the wreckage
which Christmas had created, the holiday season resembling indeed
a great battlefield on which a terrific battle had been fought,
the maimed and bleeding lying moaning, waiting for the healing
influences of a new year, I began to ask myself, What is the cause of
this great tragedy, and how can humanity be delivered from so great a
scourge?

It seemed unendurable that the anniversary of the birthday of Jesus
should be permitted to wreck the happiness of so many hearts and
homes. If Christmas stands for anything it stands for joy. “Peace
and good will”—this is the heart of Christmas. The first Christmas
was ushered in by a burst of song, and the last Christmas to be
celebrated on our planet will no doubt dawn in the same heavenly way.
“Peace on earth, good will toward men,” so the angels sang, and keep
on singing, and will continue to sing forever. “Do not be afraid,”
said the visitor from the skies, “for I bring you good tidings of
great joy.” Fear was banished when Jesus came, and so were all the
dark and dismal spectres of the mind. The shepherds were glad, and
so were the aged saints in the temple, and so were the scholars
from the East, and so was everybody—except Herod—who came to know
of the arrival of the wonderful baby. Human hearts began to sing
when Jesus came, and nothing must be allowed to reduce the volume or
the sweetness of the music. What is wrong, I asked, with Christmas
that it has become a sort of discord in the harmony of the year? Why
should the one most lustrous day of all the months loom dark and
terrible before so many eyes? Why should pain and sorrow flow like
swollen and dismal streams from a day created by infinite love for
making human hearts rejoice?

On investigation I discovered that Christmas had simply become too
small to accommodate the Christmas sentiment of the world. The
dimensions of the palace were not sufficiently spacious to allow all
of us to get in without treading on one another. One day was not
large enough for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Twenty-four
hours were not sufficient to allow everybody to practise the precept
of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The Christmas
heart had outgrown the narrow limits of the Christmas day, and the
problem of the world in the first decade of the twentieth century
was, How can Christmas be enlarged?

The query raised a host of interesting questions wherever it was
propounded. Men began to ask, Is it possible to expand the limits of
Christmas, to extend the dimensions of its golden rooms, to widen
the area on which it stands? For instance, would it be possible to
make Christmas cover two days instead of one? How would it do to say
that Christmas is the 24th and 25th of December, or the 25th and
26th of December? At first glance one would declare that this is
quite impossible, for the reason that Jesus was born on the 25th of
December and therefore we have no right to include in our Christmas
celebration any other day. But right here we face a curious and
puzzling fact. Nobody knows on what particular day of December Jesus
of Nazareth was born.

The question has always been a matter of dispute, even among those
who might presumably be best fitted to know. He may have been born
the 24th or the 26th, or even the 27th or 28th. Indeed, for all we
know he may have been born on any day of our month of December, so
that we have a right to build the palace of Christmas on any day of
the month, for every day is equally eligible for consecration, and in
order to be sure that we have the right day, why not allow Christmas
to cover the entire month? The ancients were so fearful of slighting
one of the gods that after they had erected altars to all the gods
whose names they knew, they sometimes erected an altar to the unknown
god, in this way being sure of not omitting from the scope of their
reverence any god who had a right to be included. Why not make sure
of having the right day in December by building the Christmas palace
upon them all? Thirty-one foundation stones instead of one would
support a really royal structure, and surely a palace filling the
dimensions of a month would be none too large for the commemoration
of the most stupendous event in human history—the birth of Jesus.

By thus expanding Christmas we should not get into such a pet and
fury as some of us now do. We should have time to think about the
meaning of this great event for which Christmas stands, and we should
also become more accustomed to the exercise of the Christmas virtues.
As things now are we have scarcely time enough to bring the Christmas
graces to fullest bloom. One day is quite too short. To entertain
and nourish beautiful and charitable thoughts, to kindle and foster
kind and forgiving feelings, to set the heart singing and the spirit
adoring, for all this a single day is hardly long enough. If we
should think such thoughts every day for a week and a month, our
minds would get accustomed to these high altitudes and would not sink
back so readily to lower and unworthy levels of mental and emotional
conduct. If we should go right on for a month forgiving our enemies
and breathing charity for all, we might get so habituated to these
heavenly feelings as never again to be willing to give them up. A
month is none too large as a foundation on which to build a mansion
spacious enough fitly to commemorate the coming of our Lord.

Not only would it be better for ourselves if in some such way
Christmas might be expanded, but hosts of our brothers and sisters
would be gladdened by the change. With an entire month at one’s
disposal in which to do one’s Christmas shopping and to tie up one’s
Christmas packages and to plan for one’s Christmas dinner, the burden
of preparation would not fall so suddenly or with such crushing
force upon those who minister to us, and many who are now unable to
rejoice in the Christmas celebration would be found joyfully singing
the Christmas song. Much of the congestion and the crowding of the
present would be rendered impossible, and Christmas would become
what it ought to be,—a time of universal exultation, a season of
world-wide gratitude and love.

But when one gets thus far he discovers that he must go farther. Why
confine Christmas, some one says, to the month of December? No one
can be certain that Jesus was born in December. The New Testament
does not say so, nor does the New Testament contain any evidence by
which any particular month of the year can be proved to be the month
of Jesus’ birth. Plausible arguments have been adduced to prove that
his birthday came in September. October also has put in its claim.
There are only a few of the twelve months which have not stood up and
demanded recognition and honor as the month of the year in which the
King of Glory came. Months hitherto silent will no doubt speak later
on.

It is evidently not God’s will that we should know in what season
of the year Jesus came. Not one of his apostles felt inspired to
give information upon that interesting but unimportant point. God
has hidden the key to that secret, and nobody knows where to find
it. This is the Lord’s doing, and it ought to have a meaning for our
eyes. If we do not know the month of Jesus’ birth and if God has so
fixed things that such knowledge is forever beyond our reach, why
not build the Christmas palace upon the month of January as well as
upon the month of December? A two months’ Christmas would be better
than a one month Christmas, and as it is impossible to draw the line
at the end of January and say thus far shall Christmas extend and
no farther, why not take in February, March and April; yes, May,
June and July, also August, September, October and November? Are we
justified in leaving out any of the months of the year? Do we not
call it the year of our Lord? Why not then let him have the whole of
it as a suitable memorial of his birth? A Christmas a year long—that
would not be too protracted. Christmas all the time—that would be
ideal. Always extending merry greetings, always wishing others
well, always generous in our giving, always humming the angels’
song, always seeking and praising the King—is not that the sort of
Christmas which this world of ours most needs?

Certainly it is the kind of Christmas most pleasing to the heart of
Christ. I imagined I heard him saying, as he beheld the Christmas
which our civilization had produced: “I hate your Christmas, I am
weary of it, because so many of my children are fatigued. It is an
abomination unto me because it has rolled a crushing weight on so
many hearts. Away with it. It is too small. Build me a more spacious
Christmas. Extend the walls of it, until like the New Jerusalem it
shall lie four-square, with three gates on each side, so capacious
and hospitable that the populations of the earth can bring their
glory into it. Let the Christmas season be coterminous with the
limits of the year.”

Now when I heard him say this I asked myself the question, Who is
sufficient for this thing? Who can build this stately Christmas ample
enough to fill a year? To make one day bright and glorious—even this
is sometimes hard. We brush away our tears, we crush down in our
hearts the dark and fearsome feelings, saying, “This is Christmas
Day. I must to-day be cheery, to-day I must wear a smiling face; but
to-morrow I will pick up again my burden, to-morrow I will cry again.
For the sake of the children I will pretend that I am happy—only for
a day.” It is by no means easy to make an ideal Christmas even one
day long. Many a time the Christmas crystal palace has been shattered
to fragments by stones hurled by the hands of the heart’s foes. To
build a palace covering the extensive area of a year, planting a
column on each one of the three hundred and sixty-five pieces of that
strange mosaic which men call Time, swinging over all a dome full of
the light and glory of God’s face—this is an enterprise as difficult
as it is stupendous, but one from which no true follower of Jesus
ought to shrink.

When I saw that the old Christmas had been really outgrown and
realized that a new Christmas must be speedily constructed, I set
out at once in search of architects and builders competent for so
vast an undertaking. Who, I said, can build a Christmas great enough
to satisfy and bless a world? Who can take the walls of our little
Christmas and by some magic power extend them until they reach around
the borders of a year? So I pondered and I was greatly troubled,
because I knew not where to go. Where, I asked, shall wisdom be found?

First of all I went to the learned men, the men who know what the
past has been and what the present is. I knocked at the doors of
all the universities, beginning with the oldest and ending with
the youngest, but in no one of them could I find builders for this
new and gigantic work. I then turned to the market-place where men
of practical genius are wont to congregate. I mingled with the
captains of industry; I glanced down the lines of merchants, bankers,
manufacturers, the men who are doing the largest things in our day
and generation, and I said in a loud voice, “Can any of you gentlemen
build the world a larger Christmas?” and not one voice replied, “I
can.”

Thereupon I went to the palaces of kings, where live the great and
mighty of the earth, and when I noticed the glitter of the crowns and
the gorgeousness of the sceptres I felt encouraged, for I said: “Here
is a royal thing to be attempted, and surely royal heads and hearts
shall prove equal to the task.” But, alas, at the door of every royal
palace the same word was given: “No one here has skill or power
sufficient to build a larger Christmas.”

Not yet hopeless I turned to the parliaments of the world and
looked into the august faces of lords and senators, of generals and
princes,—men who have carved their names in the body of the life of
their time, and I said pleadingly: “Can you, or any men you know,
come and erect for the world a larger Christmas?” and my question
brought nothing but silence for an answer.

I then stole into the study of the philosophers and glided into the
groves where walk the poets; I passed from court to court where
learned judges sit; I entered boldly into the camp where army
and navy leaders study plans for the conquest of the world, and
everywhere I asked the same baffling question: “Can you erect for
mankind a more spacious and more fitting Christmas?” and in every
place the same answer was returned: “Strength and wisdom equal to so
great a task do not dwell with us.”

[Illustration: _And my question brought nothing but silence for on
answer_]

And then I turned to the aged. Wherever there was a gray head I
paused and put once more my question. Wherever I could find a man of
experience, of achievement, of earthly wisdom, of renowned skill,
of acknowledged genius, there I propounded my interrogation, ever
receiving the same disappointing reply. And when I had travelled
round the world and could find nowhere any man or woman, high or low,
rich or poor, great or humble, mighty or feeble, who could give me
what I sought, all at once I remembered that Christmas is the one
celebration of all the jubilees known in human history which cannot
be carried on without the presence of children. I began to reflect
upon the fact that Christmas is the one holiday which cannot be
separated from the brightness of a child’s eyes or the music of a
child’s laughter.

I fell to pondering the fact that when old folks think of Christmas
they think of the days when they were young. When their children
are grown and have gone far away from home, the parents refresh
their hearts by thinking of the time when there was a Christmas tree
in the nursery and the glad shout of children exulting over their
treasures filled all the house. And I remembered also that husbands
and wives who have no children find their hearts going out toward
other people’s children at Christmas time. And when I saw in my
mind’s eye the whole world gathered together for the celebration of
Christmas and beheld a little child in the centre, I began to think
of the day when in Capernaum Jesus set a child in the midst of twelve
men, saying: “Of such is the kingdom of heaven.” And when this all
flashed upon me I started out at once in search of a child. “To him
undoubtedly,” I said, “has God committed the secret of Christmas. He
can tell me where the Christmas builders can be found.”

I went, I asked, and great was my reward. Through a child’s eyes I
looked into the child heart, and there standing radiant and beautiful
were seven angels,—the angels which are the builders of Christmas.
These are their names: Wonder, Humility, Trust, Simplicity, Purity,
Joy, and Affection. By these the first Christmas was constructed, and
without these no genuine Christmas can be built. These are strong
angels, they dig deep and they mount high. They can build a Christmas
covering the year.

Christmas is glorious because it is the creation of a child. Man is
not the architect of it. It is not a creation of human ingenuity or
wisdom. It was built in the first place by a baby, and the glitter
of it was simply the reflection of the light of a baby’s eyes. The
kings of the earth have often taken council together, but they have
never conceived anything so beautiful as Christmas. For a marvel so
stupendous God fell back upon a child. Children are the magicians
of the earth. Their wizardry surpasses that of magic. The scope and
power of their necromancy, who can measure?

There was nothing in the world like Christmas till Jesus came. On the
day of his birth God called the nations together and set a little
child in their midst. From the beginning a full-grown man had stood
at the centre, but the circle gathered round him had never been
joyous. Sometimes the central man had been a general and sometimes
a king, occasionally he had been a scholar and frequently a saint;
but no matter who he was the circle was not enchanted and the heart
refused to sing. But as soon as a child was placed at the centre,
humanity began to organize itself in unprecedented ways and to
move forward along original lines. It began to sing a new song. The
world had for ages been despondent and hopeless, and no potentate or
miracle-worker, however mighty, had been able to lift it out of its
dark mood. But when God took a child and set him in the midst, then
was the world’s mouth filled with laughter, and all things became new.

This is the difference then between the ancient world and the modern,
the first had an adult at the centre, the latter has a child. Out of
the child heart—and the child heart is the Christ heart—are coming
the forces for the rebuilding of the world. The problem of existence
is the task of keeping the child in us alive, the heart that wonders,
trusts and loves.

Christmas is not a day, it is a mood. It is independent of days.
We celebrate it on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, any day of the week.
Christmas is indifferent to days. It has nothing to do with the
almanac. It has nothing to do with place. It is as independent
of geography as it is of chronology. It has no relation to human
government or even to race or blood. It is an institution which can
be set up on any soil and under the folds of any flag. Christmas is
a spiritual creation and belongs to the kingdom of the heart. It is
constructed by the angels of the heart of a child. If it then be a
mood, it can be extended over a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. It
can be built upon time, upon eternity. If you confine it to a day,
you miss the meaning of it. If you try to cram it into twenty-four
hours, you crush it and lose the essence of it. The Christmas spirit
is the only spirit by which men and women really live. The Saviour of
the world has said: You cannot enter the kingdom of heaven—and that
is his name for Christmas—except you become

  “_As a Little Child_.”