This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 21, 1940.
Christmas, more than any day of the year, has had a definite pattern in our minds, made up of white parcels tied with red satin bows, crimson and silver streamers, holy bells, candles, sparklers, an overloaded mailman coming late, telegrams, visitors, great meals, pyramiding to a grand climax on Christmas night and then a sigh of relief and a “Thank God that is over for another year,” as we gather up the cards and discarded wrappings, take down the decorations and settle back to normal living.
In spite of the hurry and the fatigue of Christmas, it is a happy time and we tell each other that we must never let Christmas change. We must keep the snowy cards, the fireside scenes and all the good, old customs.
But this year, everything has changed. All the old patterns are breaking. When Mr. Churchill said, “There can be no cessation of hostilities on Christmas Day,” we knew he was right, for this is a life or death struggle — Britain, our Britain, is either Hitler’s greatest victim, or the stronghold of liberty, the world’s White Hope of freedom. There can be no compromise.
Christmas is the sign and symbol of our dearest possession, the Christian ideal, the decent way of life. It is not by chance that so many churches have been destroyed by the Nazis — they know that there is some connection between these glittering spires pointing heavenward and the sturdy resistance of the British people.
All their lives, Canadian people have been doing many gracious, kindly acts, especially at Christmas time. There always have been dinners and drives and concerts for strangers, dolls and balls and little wagons for orphans; flowers and comforts for the old and the sick; hospitality in homes for neighbours and friends; laughter, music, good fellowship, even the singing of hymns and good conversation, as people recall the rosy days of youth. All of which is good for the soul, and as the immortal author of Pickwick would say: “Our kind hearts have done us credit.”
But these things are wholly inadequate at this momentous time when mankind is being weighed in the balance, which tips drunkenly this way and that. Man is young, as God measures time, and his growth is slow, but even the dullest of us know now that we are now making a move. We are like the electric clocks where the minute hand remains stationary until the end of the minute and then goes forward.
God knew what He was doing when He gave man free will. He knew it would make trouble and the world would be harder to run than a menagerie, but being all-wise and all-powerful He knew that all would come right in the end.
He must have known this, and that is a comfort, too, in these hard days to remind ourselves that God has taken great pains to make the world a beautiful place. We see that when a snowflake falls on our coat sleeve and we observe its delicate symmetry. We see it in the way the seeds of a flower are packed in their little pods. We see the touch of artistry when we examine the head of wheat, with each grain as neat as a baby’s fingernail.
The thought of God’s infinite care comes to me as I look out on this boisterous December day, with the cold rain streaking the windows and a crying wind coming down the chimney. The fire of arbutus roots burns green and blue, rose and gold, in a prodigality of colour. I find comfort, too, in the winter jasmine on the verandah, which even now is a mass of golden stars, a little bridge from autumn to spring across the cold expanse of winter. God shows in a thousand ways that He is mindful of us.
But on Christmas Day, He challenges us, and never so clearly as in this year of 1940.
When Christ was born in Bethlehem, there came into the world a life destined to change the world. We read in the Gospel story that there was no room for Joseph and Mary in the Inn, and no preparation for the coming of the Child. The world was not ready for Him, and never has been ready, unless it is now when everything else is falling and all of the old securities are going.
All down the years, evolution has been at work and evolution does not exclude God. Far from it. It is just the way God works, little by little, and with infinite patience.
I believe the challenge of today is in the need of courage. Britain is an example of courage in the face of danger, because she has courageous leaders, we say, and that is true. But leaders must have followers. The courage of Britain is the courage of the humble people.
The women who take their turn in the lookouts, though the night is bitter cold; the sailors who go out to sea, braving the danger of ship-wreck by mines and bombings from the skies. Everyone in Britain seems to have received the baptism of great courage and a great generosity of heart. They give all they have — cheerfully, gallantly, without self-pity or resentment.
If we could catch this vision, we who sleep soundly in our beds, we could build a country here in Canada on a foundation of justice and equality, that would show the nations of the world that we had found the secret of victorious living.
I have no doubt that the Canadian people would put up as stiff a defence as the people of Britain, if we were put on the spot. What we need now is the imagination to see that we are on the spot. But not being in the battle zone, we have an added responsibility and a privilege that the people of Britain are denied.
We must think about and work for the sort of world that will bring peace. It is folly to urge the prime minister of England to set forth his peace aims. When a man’s house is burning is a poor time to ask him what sort of a new one he intended to build.
But we have time to plan for a new world, and must ask ourselves as we look around us how far are we willing to go in sacrifice to bring back hope and faith and joy to a world that has gone mad with hate.
God has to work through human beings like you and me. Christ left His commission to His disciples, and they were a group of ordinary men, much like ourselves, looking for favours, soft seats, “commissions” — a bit dull and quite a bit greedy. But they received a gift — a great gift that transformed them into extraordinary men who knew no fear.
When this new power, the power of God, came into their hearts, they established the church of Christ in an unfriendly and unbelieving world. It cost them their lives, but they did it. Without money or influence, radio or cars, they spread the Gospel. And they wrote a book that still outsells any other book.
Ordinary men, with the grace of God in their hearts. It is well for us at Christmas time to think of these things, for in them lies the solution of our troubles, the only permanent solution.
