Cyrus Townsend Brady

“ He loved the little lady whose tattered stocking swung in the breeze from the cracked window. Also he loved the wretched woman who with himself shared the honours of parentage to the poor but hopeful mite who was also dreaming of Christmas and the morning. And his love inspired him to action. Singular into what devious courses, utterly unjustifiable, even so exalted and holy an emotion may lead fallible man. Love—burglary! They do not belong naturally in association, yet slip cold, need, and hunger in between and we may have explanation even if there be no justification. ”

“ Peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men of goodwill! That is what the angels sang. But there is nothing on earth to prevent us from making it our human song as well. As we stand by the cradle of the Master and peer into the manger at that which every human being loves, a baby, our earthly differences of nationality, of rank, power, station, and influence—things that are but the guinea’s stamp upon the gold of character and personality—fade into insignificance and become as nothing. ”

“ Let us then show our good will toward men by doing good and bringing happiness to someone—if not to everyone—at this Christmas season. Put aside the memories of disappointments, of sorrows that have not vanished, of cares that still burden, and do good in spite of them because you would not dim the brightness of the present for any human heart with the shadows of old regrets. Do good because of a future which opens possibilities before you, for others, if not for yourselves. ”

“ And so let there be peace between man and man at Christmas—a truce of God.
Let us pray that Love shall come as a little child to our households. That He shall be in our hearts and shall find His expression in all that we do or say on this birthday of goodness and cheer for the world. Then let us resolve that the spirit of the day shall be carried out through our lives, that as Christ did not come for an hour, but for a lifetime, we would fain become as little children on this day of days that we may begin a new life of good will to men. ”

“ Let us forget it all this Christmas morning.
It was a poor place, that manger—the poorest place on earth—but it was a place. It was somewhere. Let us give humanity even as little as a manger. Let us not take up the Christ Child as we see Him and throw Him out into the streets, or into no man’s land. That is what we do when we mock Him, when we deny Him, when we laugh Him to scorn. ”

“ The light that shone in the darkness lighted impartially the world. Some of you are blessed with competences and some of the competences are greater than others. What of it? The poor man may serve God acceptably in his poverty and the rich man may serve God acceptably in his wealth. There is one God and though He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, even though He may lie lowly in a manger, yet the kingdom of Heaven is like a republic—it is a democracy in which all are equal, or if there be distinctions they are based on righteousness alone—saving only the distinctions Divine. ”

“ Came Christmas Eve. They had no money and no food and no fire. Stop! The fire of love burned in the woman’s heart, the fire of hate in the man’s. Prison life usually completes the education in shame of the unfortunate men who are thrust there. This was before the days in which humane men interested themselves in prisons and prisoners and strove to awaken the world to its responsibilities to, as well as the possibilities of, the convict. ”

“ How many, with whom we joined hands around the Christmas tree, have gone?
Circles are broken, families are separated, loved ones are lost, but the old world sweeps on. Others come to take our places. As we stood at the knee of some unforgotten mother, so other children stand. As we listened to the story of the Christ Child from the lips of some grey old father, so other children listen and we ourselves perchance are fathers or mothers too. Other groups come to us for the deathless story. ”

“ In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness, and disappointment.
Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge one’s self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the noblest method of commemorating the day. ”

“ Let us therefore on this Holy Natal Day, from which the whole world dates its time, begin on our knees before that altar which is at once manger, cross, throne. Let us join thereafter in holy cheer of praise and prayer and exhortation and Christmas carol, and then let us go forth with a Christmas spirit in our hearts resolved to communicate it to the children of men, and not merely for the day but for the future. To make the right use of these our privileges, this it is to save the world. ”

“ You can know that your God was poor, that He was humble, that He struggled under adverse conditions, that He laboured, that He was hungry, thirsty, tired, cold, that He was homeless, that He was denied many of the joys of human society and the solace of affection, that His best friends went back on Him, that everybody deserted Him, and that the whole world finally rose up and crushed Him down. That he suffered all things. Only a very great God could so endure. Only one who was truly God could so manifest Himself in pain. ”

“ Is it to be persistently and forever unkind? Does it mean perhaps the absolute refusal to accept the principle of love which is indeed creation’s final law? The lessons of the Christmastide are so many; the appeals that now may be made to humanity crowd to the lips from full minds and fuller hearts. Might we not reduce them all to the explication of the underlying principle of God’s purpose to us, as expressed in those themic words of love with which angels and men greeted the advent of the Child on the first Christmas morning, “Good will toward men?” ”

“ How many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the straighter figure, the softer palm!
The shepherds were not only poor, but they laboured in their poverty; they were working men and they worshipped Him, the Working Man. The wise men were not only wise, but they were rich. ”

“ In later years I worship in the great cathedral church, ablaze with lights, verdant and fragrant with the evergreen pines, echoing with joyful carols and celestial harmonies. My recollections are of contrasts like those of life—joy and sadness, poverty and ease.
And the pictures are full of faces, many of which may be seen no more by earthly vision. I miss the clasp of vanished hands, I crave the sound of voices stilled. As we old and older grow, there is a note of sadness in our glee. ”

“ On the other hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at all. “The gift without the giver is bare.”
And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The lex talionis has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel that you must give to someone because someone gave to you. ”

“ She had a beautiful room in which she slept alone. Adjacent to it, in another room almost as beautiful, slept Celeste, her mamma’s French maid. Ethel had been exquisitely trained. She lay awake a long time before making a sound or movement, wishing it were time to arise. But Christmas was strong upon her, the infection of the season was in her blood. Presently she slipped softly out of bed, pattered across the room, paused at the door which gave entrance to the hall which led to her mother’s apartments, then turned and plumped down upon Celeste. ”

“ And yet to-day and at this hour, and at every hour during the twenty-four, men are looking into that chamber; men are bowing to that Child and His mother, and even that mother is at the feet of the Child.
From the snow peaks of the North land, “from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand,” and on and on through all the burning tropics to the companion ice of the other pole, the antarctic, and girdling the world from east to west as well, the adoration continues. ”

“ There are many people belonging to you or your family who are far away, whom you would fain have with you this Christmas morning. Many of them are fighting manfully in His cause, too. Do not forget that our Lord came to the family! that He made a family by coming. These far-off loved ones are doing what we are doing this morning. And there are some you love who are still farther away. The sound of their earthly voices is stilled, we may not clasp their hands, we cannot see them any more. They are gone from the world, but not from our hearts. ”

“ The world transmutes that joy into blessing, not merely by giving of its substance but of its soul because men perceive that it is for the soul’s good and because they hope to receive its benefits although they well know that giving is far better than receiving, in the very words of Him Who gave us the greatest of all gifts—Himself.
As a Priest of the Church, as a Missionary in the Far West, as the Rector of large and important parishes I have been brought in touch with varied life. Christmas in all its phases is familiar to me. ”

“ This is a day in which we ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas day however we may feel before or after. ”

“ We thank God for the portion of His Spirit with which He dowers every child of man, just as we thank Him for pouring it all upon the Infant in the Manger.
There is no age that has not had its prophet. No country, no people, but that has produced its leader. But did any of them ever before come as a little child? Did any of them begin to lead while yet in arms? Lodges there upon any other baby brow “the round and top of sovereignty?” What distinguished Christ and His Christian followers from all the world? ”

“ Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such a thing as too much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach, stared out of the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow with feelings of dismay. It was the day before Christmas, almost Christmas Eve. Henry did not feel any too happy, indeed he had hard work to keep down a sob. His mother had died but a few weeks before and his father, the captain of a freighter on the Great Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly, to send him to his brother who had a big ranch in western Nebraska. ”

“ The stories and tales for Christmas which have for their theme the hard heart softened are not mere fictions of the imagination. They rest upon an instinctive consciousness of a profound philosophic truth. ”

“ Why, therefore, should the Incarnation be thought incredible or impossible because it does not come within the limitations of our present understanding and it is not taught by our limited human experience. ”

“ Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year, then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around the table of the Lord, kneeling before God’s altar in the ministering of that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and the future—the communion of the saints of God’s Holy Church with His Beloved Son. ”

“ Such a Christmas dinner it was! There was no turkey, and they did not even have a chicken. The menu was corn-bread, ham, and potatoes, and mighty few potatoes at that. There were two children in the family, a girl of six and a boy of five. They were glad enough to get the ham. Their usual bill of fare was composed of potatoes and corn-bread, and sometimes corn-bread alone. My wife had put up a lunch for me, fearing that I might not be able to get anything to eat, in which there was a small mince-pie turnover; and the children had slipped a small box of candy in my bag as a Christmas gift. ”

“ And so everybody has a right to come to that cradle, the poor, the humble, the hard workers, the toilers, the wise, the learned, the easy, the rich, the joyous, the sad, the sorrowful, the bereaved. They may all look into the manger and see their God. ”

“ Now there is a kind of pernicious socialism which condemns riches as things unholy and exalts poverty as a thing acceptable to God. That Baby came as well to the rich as to the poor. Do not forget that. It is not generally understood, but it is true. He accepted gladly the hospitality, the alms, the gifts, priceless in value, of those who had great possessions and He loved them even as He loved those who had nothing. The rich and wise also have a right to look into that cradle to see their God, too. ”

“ It shines to-day. Still sparkles the Star in the East. He is that Star.
There is nothing that can take from mankind—even doubting mankind—the spirit of Christ and the Christmas season. Our celebrations do not rest upon the conclusions of logic, or the demonstrations of philosophy; I would not even argue that they depend inevitably or absolutely upon the possession of a certain faith in Jesus, but we accept Christmas, nevertheless; we endeavour to apply the Christmas spirit, for just once in the year ”