Editorial December 21, 1987 Issue

"Gifts greater than those of Magian kings"

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

There was a grade-school play at Christmas time. Soap flakes drifted down through the spotlights and served convincingly as snow, at least for the actors if not the audience.

As an eleven-year-old, it never occurred to me the play was sentimental—one of the most well worn of the genre. I was absorbed in trying to learn more lines than I'd ever imagined could be remembered. Also I was thinking that in order to play the role I had to be at least something like the boy in the play.

I don't recall the whole story now, but it was about a poor boy who put the only coin he had on the altar, and the bells of the cathedral, which had been silent for years, rang on Christmas Eve. So I was trying to be good. It wasn't that I'd been bad in any notable way, but trying to be consistently conscious of good on my own initiative, for my own reasons, was a fairly new experience. It made that Christmas a memorable one.

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