Editorial December 18, 1902 Issue

The Nobler Giving

CHRISTMAS comes again to remind us that it is the world's giving time. For one happy day at least the impulses of selfishness have met their match and something of the sunshine of the Golden Rule finds its way to every hearthstone and every heart. Without any parleying over considerations for our own future needs, universal good-will becomes the almoner of our bounty, and our riches are committed by his unstinting hand to that great gift stream whose tributaries drain every store, and whose tide bears enrichment and surprise to all mankind.

While the festal day tarries we can but ruminate on what a pleasant thing it is to be really self-forgetful, to be busy, yes, absorbed in planning and working for the joy and betterment of others, and we wonder how so many of us could have forgotten this secret, in the intervening days. We recall also that in the true life all joy belongs to giving, though the sense that is self-centred has tried to wrest it from its native place and attach it to our getting. To this weakening human sense there has been and is yet much of bondage, but in our awakening we see that he truly finds life who yields to the highest, most unselfish impulses, and the consciousness of this finding is at one with the knowing that our names are written in heaven. The doing of a Christ-like deed is coincident with the recognition of the Christ-spirit within, whence springs our unalloyed joy and peace.

It will be well moreover if we do not forget that the best, most worthy gifts are those which answer to the deepest need, the noblest capacity, the highest aspiration. Much of the world's giving satisfies a sense whose presence were better ignored than ministered to, and this was Jesus' offence in part, that he would not concede to unideal expectations and demands, however conventional.

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