[Dr. H. C. Culbertson, as quoted in the Times, Los Angeles, California]

As the Christmas season approaches, let us open our hearts to the Christ-spirit. Let us lovingly protest against everything in national, business, and ecclesiastical life which is not in harmony with the character of our Lord. Let us devotedly set ourselves to live forth and spread abroad those ideas of love and brotherhood which are the radiance of God and which alone can save mankind.

[Editorial in the Boston Daily Globe, Massachusetts]

The lesson which the world has mostly still to learn is that proclaimed by the choired voices on Christmas Day. It is of the great human family, of the essential unity of the race. And as the lesson is assimilated the task is spread before us all. This unity must be made actual. As it becomes fact, many of the troubles by which mankind has been beset through the centuries will vanish. The Christmas mystery is that all the members one of another.

[Rev. Ralph W. Sockman, in the Christian Herald, New York, New York]

Sometimes we fear that Christmas may lose its significance as a festival of Christianity and become merely a festival of urbanity. It is possible for persons to pass through a veritable orgy of giving without approaching an appreciation of the meaning of the great gift which all this was once supposed to typify. And many do just that. It is possible for us to go the gay round of Christmas festivities, dances, dinners, family reunions, and yet never come near the stable where Christ [Jesus] was born.

With no pessimistic tone do we point out the fact that the birthday of our Lord has come down from Bethlehem by "another way." In many respects the "wise men" to-day celebrate the manger revelation in wider and more improved ways. But we would remind ourselves that the travelers on the road from Bethlehem must always keep in mind the original road to Bethlehem.

The Bible likens the birth of Christ to the sunrise. The priest Zacharias, father of John the Baptist, foretells the significance of Christ's coming by saying, "The dayspring from on high shall visit us." Christ [Jesus] speaks of himself as the Light of the world. The breaking of that divine Light upon a dark world was the thing which came to pass at Bethlehem. ....

When one thinks of the babe born in a Bethlehem manger, despised and rejected of men in the days of his earthly sojourn, yet so reversing the laws of circumstance that he started a tidal wave of kindness which has surged its cleansing and redeeming way around the world, until it is submerging the very ruins of the ancient nations which laughed him to scorn—when one reads the evidence of these nineteen centuries with a field glass, and not merely with spectacles, he stands awed as never before in front of the Galilean gift. The "wise men" have departed from Bethlehem "another way." And when they look back it is to see not the King of the Jews but the Saviour of the world.

[Ralph W. Dow, in the Boston Evening Transcript, Massachusetts]

The Christmas spirit should be the spirit of Christ's love for man spread broadcast in the thoughts and hearts of men. It refers back to a babe in a manger and a star in the east. It is held to be specially fitting for outward expression on the birthday anniversary of that stabled birth. It should breathe into the inner ear of men and women and children something of all the love, all the sacrifice, all the healing, all the sympathy shown by that man divine to his fellow-men. This was the first and fundamental meaning of the Christmas spirit. It should teach that as he, having nothing, yet gave all, so should we of our bounty and abundance give something of love and sympathy and sacrifice in addition to our material gifts.

And we do.

But as the years go by, the connection between the babe-in-the-manger and the Christmas spirit grows ever dimmer and more dim, while the connection between Santa Claus and those more material Christmas gifts looms larger and larger. .... The tendency of the myth of Santa Claus is steadily toward materialism and away from idealism, in its teaching to children. ....

I have faith in the Christmas spirit. Its inception leads back to a sentence spoken on a mountain top: Love your neighbor as yourself. I have faith in and love for the hearts and lives of Christmas "givers"—their giving is largely promoted by the spirit come to earth, when the star shone in the east and a babe lay in a manger. The Christmas spirit has something of the divine connected with it. ...

If that which is divine is higher than that which is human, if fine idealism is preferable to rank materialism, if the Son of Man is more noble than Satan, then I feel that the babe-in-the-manger should dominate the Christmas spirit and not the myth of Santa Claus.

[Editorial in the Wall Street Journal, New York, New York]

We formulate rules for right living in status and even enforce them, after a fashion, where the law is already written in the hearts of men. That is why a law which prohibits something morally wrong finds acceptance and obedience with all right-minded people, while an ordinance forbidding something which is not evil in itself is harder to enforce.

It would be difficult to find any historical evidence to confirm the perenially lovely story of the manger cradle at Bethlehem. All the proof is in the Gospels themselves, and few scholars would call them contemporary records.

But there is a deeper confirmation in the effect upon the hearts of men.

Modern business would look a miracle to the simple-minded believers of even a century ago. .... However complex our civilization grows, faith continues in our hearts, bringing its simple blessings even as the shepherd kings carried their gifts. The radio has not displaced the bells of Trinity ringing the old message to the country's financial center. They tell us that the herald angels are still singing, and that we may lift up our hearts to hear the voices and to see the star.

[From Great Thoughts, London, England]

It is a great thing to be able to enter sympathetically into the life that is about one, and to understand and appreciate the people with whom one lives and whom one meets from day to day. And it is a thing supremely worth doing, even if it does seem at times to be a supremely difficult thing. To be out of touch with people and with life in general not only makes for unhappiness and dissatisfaction, but is, as well, a markedly unchristian and selfish way to live. To be superior to the common people or the common ways of life, or for any reason at all to be indifferent to them, is to be guilty of one of the major sins against the Christian spirit and teaching.

How well the great master Christian understood people and entered into sympathy and fellowship with them! Of course, one of the reasons why some of us find it so hard to follow his example in this is that we have so little of his self-forgetfulness and his friendly human interest and kindliness. Sympathy with people is a thing that can never be very successfully counterfeited, and the genuine thing cannot be easily and lightly compassed.

One of the reasons we know so little about it is that we are not quite willing to pay the price. And one of the things we especially like about Christmas time is that it does seem to help many of us to be just a little more human, and it does succeed in touching the chords of our hearts with a broader and kindlier and friendlier feeling toward all the rest of the world.

[Fred Squires, in the Weekly Herald, Bridgetown, Barbados, British West Indies]

But what is the meaning of Christmas? Does it mean a change from necessary labor to a day of voluntary license with its resultant after effects? If it does not, what then does it mean?

Does it still bring to us that example of love and self-sacrifice which it brought to men two thousand years ago, when it first broke over the misty hills of Judea as the land lay wrapped in slumbrous solitude? Does it still convey to us that message of peace and good will that accompanied it, as it smiled over poor .... Jerusalem, lying unconscious of the wonderful scene that awaited it? And if it does, do we take these things with a spirit of tolerance, of brotherliness, and of love towards all men? If we do, then we have begun to know the real meaning of Christmas. But we cannot stop there. If we would show that we know the meaning of Christmas, we must perforce show it in an active way.

We should open our hearts in a passive and receptive way and let the spirit and mind of that babe whose nativity we commemorate, be born anew in us this day; and we too shall, in the stillness of our souls, .... even as did those shepherds in the wintry silence of Judea, hear the multitude of the heavently hosts, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

And experiencing this peace and good will within us, should we not extend the hand of fellowship and show some act of charity?

Then let us on this occasion do some kind thing, speak some loving word, even make some helpful sign, or give a cheerful smile which shall assist some unfortunate creatures who, perhaps, from some cause or other fail to grasp the true significance of Christmas.

Let us help them to forget and forgo their trouble of the past year and cause some seed of hope to spring within their breasts, thereby helping the day to be what it was intended originally to be—a day of good will, of love and peace.

If we do this, then we shall prove that we really know "the meaning of Christmas."

[Editorial in the Cambridge Tribune, Massachusetts]

The real Christmas is the joy of giving, with its inspiration coming from the gifts of gold and myrrh and frankincense nearly two thousand years ago; but to-day our gifts are brought to the manger only through giving to others in the spirit of him who was born in the manger.