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A Christmas sermon. By the time
this paper appears, I shall have been

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talking for twelve months, and it
is thought I should take my leave in

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a formal and seasonable manner. Valedictory
eloquence is rare, and deathbed sayings have

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not often hit the mark of the
occasion. Charles Second, wit and skeptic,

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a man whose life has been one
long lesson in human incredulity, an

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easy going comrade, a maneuvering king
remembered and embodied all his wit and skepticism,

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along with more than his usual good
humor. In the famous I'm afraid,

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gentlemen, I'm an unconscionable time,
a dying one, an unconscionable time,

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a dying there's a picture, I'm
afraid, gentlemen, of your life

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and of mine. The sands run
out, and the hours are numbered and

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imputed, and the days go by, and when the last of these finds

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us, we have been a long
time dying. And what else? The

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very length is something. If we
reach that hour of separation undishonored, and

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to have lived at all all is
doubtless. In the soldierly expression to have

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served there is a tale, and
Tacitus of how the veterans mutinied in the

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German wilderness, of how they mob
Germanicus clamoring to go home, and of

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how seizing their general's hands, these
old war warned exiles passed his finger along

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their toothless gums. Sunt lachrymae rerum. This is the most eloquent of the

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songs of Simeon. And when the
man has lived to a fair age,

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he bears his marks of service.
He may have never been remarked upon the

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breach at the head of the army, at least he shall have lost his

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teeth on the camp bread. The
idealism of serious people in this age of

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ours is of a notable character.
It never seems to them that we have

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served enough. They have a fine
impatience of their virtues. It were perhaps

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more modest to be stingily thankful that
we are no worse. It is not

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only our enemies, those desperate characters. It is we ourselves who know not

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what we do. Thence springs the
glimmering hope that perhaps we do better than

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we think, that to scramble through
this random business with hands reasonably clean,

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to have played the part of a
man or a woman with some reasonable fullness

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to have often resisted the diabolic,
and at the end to be still resisting.

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It is for the poor human soldier
to have done right well. To

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ask to see some fruit of our
endeavor is but a transcendental way of serving

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for reward. And what we take
to be contempt of self is only greed

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of hire. And again, if
we require so much of ourselves, shall

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we not require much of others?
If we do not genially judge our own

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deficiencies, is it not to be
feared? We shall be even stern to

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the trespasses of others. And he
who looking back on his own life can

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see no more than that he has
been unconscionably long a dying. Will he

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not be tempted to think his neighbor
unconsciably long of getting hanged. It is

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probable that nearly all who think of
conduct at all think of it too much.

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It is certain we all think too
much of sin. We are not

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damned for doing wrong, but for
not doing right. Christ would never hear

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of negative morality. Thou shalt was
ever his word with which he superseded.

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Thou shalt not to make our idea
of morality center on forbidden acts is to

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defile the imagination, and to introduce
into our judgments of our fellow men a

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secret element of gusto. If a
thing is wrong for us, we should

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not dwell upon the thought of it, or we shall soon dwell upon it

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with introverted pleasure if we cannot drive
it from our minds. One thing of

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two. Either our creed is in
the wrong, and we must more indulgently

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remodel it, or else, if
our morality be in the right, we

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are criminal lunatics, and should place
our persons in restraint. A mark of

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such unwholesomely divided minds is the passion
for interference with others. The fox without

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the tail was of this breed,
but had if his biographer is to be

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trusted a certain antique civility, now
out of date. A man may have

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a flaw, a weakness that unfits
him for the duties of life, that

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spoils his temper, that threatens his
integrity, or that betrays him into cruelty.

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It has to be conquered, but
it must never be suffered to engross

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his thoughts. The true duties lie
all upon the farther side, and must

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be attended to with a whole mind. So soon as this preliminary clearing of

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the decks has been effected, in
order that he may be kind and honest,

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it may be needful he should become
a total abstainer. Let him become

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so then, and the next day
let him forget the circumstance trying to be

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kind and honest will require all his
thoughts. A mortified appetite is never a

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wise companion. In so far as
he has had to mortify an appetite,

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he will still be the worst man. And of such an one, a

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great deal of cheerfulness will be requiredired
in judging life, and a great deal

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of humility in judging others. And
may be argued again that dissatisfaction with our

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life's endeavor springs in some degree from
dullness. We require higher tasks because we

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do not recognize the height of those
we have. Trying to be kind and

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honest seems an affair too simple and
too inconsequential For gentlemen of our heroic mold.

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We had rather set ourselves to something
bold, arduous, and conclusive.

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We had rather found a schism,
or suppress a heresy, cut off a

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hand, or mortify an appetite.
But the task before us, which is

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to co endure with our existence,
is rather one of microscopic fineness, and

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the heroism required is that of patience. There is no cutting of the Gordian

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knots of life. Each must be
smilingly unraveled, to be honest, to

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be kind, to earn a little
and spend a little less, to make

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upon the whole a family happier for
his presence, to renounce when that shall

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be necessary, and not be embittered. To keep a few friends, but

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these without capitulation, above all on
the same grim condition to keep friends with

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himself. Here is a task for
all that a man has of fortitude and

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delicacy. He has an ambitious soul
who would ask more. He has a

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hopeful spirit, who should look in
such an enterprise to be successful. There

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is indeed one element in human destiny
that not blindness itself, can controvert.

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Whatever else we are intended to do, we are not intended to succeed.

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Failure is the fate allotted. It
is so in every art and study.

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It is so above all in the
continent art of living well. Here is

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a pleasant thought for the year's end
and for the end of life, only

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self deception will be satisfied, and
there need be no despair for the despairer.

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Two. But Christmas is not the
only mile mark of another year,

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moving us to thoughts of self examination. It is a season from all its

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associations, whether domestic or religious,
suggesting thoughts of joy. A man dissatisfied

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with his endeavors is a man tempted
to sadness. And in the midst of

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the winter, when his life runs
lowest and he is reminded of the empty

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chairs of his beloved, it is
well he should be condemned to this fashion

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of the smiling face. Noble disappointment, noble self denial are not to be

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admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is

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one thing to enter the Kingdom of
heaven, maime another to maim yourself and

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stay without. And the Kingdom of
Heaven is of the childlike, of those

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who are easy to please, who
love and who give pleasure. Mighty men

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of their hands, the smiters and
the builders and the judges have lived long

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and done sternly, and yet preserved
this lovely character. And among our carpet

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interests and two penny concerns. The
shame were indelible if we should lose it.

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Gentleness and cheerfulness those come before all
morality. They are the perfect duties.

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And it is the trouble with moral
men that they have neither one nor

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the other. It was the moral
man, the pharisee, whom Christ could

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not away with. If your morals
make you dreary, depend upon it they

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are wrong. I do not say
give them up, for they may be

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all you have, but conceal them
like a vice, lest they should spoil

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the lives of better and simpler people. A strange temptation attends upon man to

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keep his eye on pleasures, even
when he will not share in them,

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to aim all his morals against them. This very year a lady singular iconoclast

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proclaimed a crusade against dolls, and
the racy's sermon against lust is a feature

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of the age. I venture to
call such moralists insincere at any excess or

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perversion of a natural appetite. Their
liar sounds of itself with relishing denunciations.

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But for all displays of the truly
diabolic envy, malice, the mean lie,

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the mean silence, the calumniust truth, the backbiter, the petty tyrant,

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the peevish poisoner of family life.
Their standard is quite different. These

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are wrong, they will admit,
yet somehow not so wrong. There is

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no zeal in their assault on them, no secret element of gusto warms up

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the sermon. It is for things
not wrong in themselves that they reserve the

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choicest of their indignation. A man
may naturally disclaim all moral kinship with the

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reverend, mister Zola, or the
hobgoblin old lady of the Dolls, for

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these are gross and naked instances.
And yet in each of us some similar

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element resides. The sight of a
pleasure in which we cannot or else will

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not share, moves us to a
particular impatience. It may be because we

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are envious, or because we are
sad, or because we dislike noise and

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romping. Being so refined, or
because being so philosophic, we have an

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overweighing sense of life's gravity. At
least, as we go on in years,

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we are all tempted to frown upon
our neighbor's pleasures. People are nowadays

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so fond of resisting temptations. Here
is one to be resisted they are fond

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of self denial. Here is the
propensity that cannot be too peremptorily denied.

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There is an idea abroad among moral
people that they should make their neighbors good.

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One person, I have to make
good myself. But my duty to

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my neighbor is much more nearly expressed
by saying that I have to make him

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happy if I may three happiness and
goodness. According to Canting, moralists stand

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in relation of effect and cause.
There was never anything less proved or less

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probable. Our happiness is never in
our own hands. We inherit our constitution.

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We stand buffet among friends and enemies. We may be so built as

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to feel a sneer or an aspersion
with unusual keenness, and so circumstanced as

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to be unusually exposed to them.
We may have nerves very sensitive to pain,

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and be afflicted with a disease very
painful. Virtue will not help us,

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and it is not meant to help
us. It is not even its

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own reward, except for the self
centered. And I had almost said the

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unamiable. No man can pacify his
conscience. If quiet be what he wants,

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he shall do better to let the
organ perish from disuse, and to

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avoid the penalties of the law and
the minor capitis di minuto of social ostracism

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is an affair of wisdom, of
cunning, if you will, and not

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of virtue in his own life.
Then a man is not to expect happiness,

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only to profit by it gladly when
it shall arise. He is on

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duty here. He knows not how
or why, and does not need to

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know. He knows not for what
hire, and must not ask somehow or

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other. Though he does not know
what goodness is, he must try to

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be good somehow or other, though
he cannot tell what will do it.

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He must try to give happiness to
others, And no doubt there comes in

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here a frequent clash of duties.
How far is he to make his neighbor

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happy? How far must he respect
that smiling face so easy to cloud,

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so hard to brighten again. How
far on the other side is he bound

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to be his brother's keeper and the
profit of his own morality? How far

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must he resent evil? The difficulty
is that we have little guidance Christ's sayings

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on the point being hard to reconcile
with each other, and the most of

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them hard to accept, But the
truth of his teaching would seem to be

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this. In our own person and
fortune, we should be ready to accept

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and to pardon all. It is
our cheek. We are to turn our

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coat. We are to give away
to the man who has taken our cloak.

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But when another's face is buffeted,
perhaps a little of the lion will

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become us. Best. That we
are to suffer others to be injured and

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stand by is not conceivable and surely
not desirable. Revenge, says Bacon,

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is a kind of wild justice.
Its judgments, at least, are delivered

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by an insane judge. And in
our own quarrel we can see nothing truly

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and do nothing wisely. But in
the quarrel of our neighbors, let us

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be more bold. One person's happiness
is as sacred as another's. When we

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cannot defend both, let us defend
one with a stout heart. It is

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only in so far as we are
doing this that we have any right to

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interfere. The defense of b is
our only ground of action against a A

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has as good a right to go
to the devil as we to go to

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glory, and neither knows what he
does. The truth is that all these

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interventions and denunciations and militant mongerings of
moral half truths, though they be sometimes

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needful, though they are often enjoyable, do yet belong to an inferior grade

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of duties. Ill temper and envy
and revenge find here an arsenal of pious

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disguises. This is the playground of
inverted lusts. With a little more patience

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and a little less temper, a
gentler and wiser method might be found in

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almost every case. And the knot
that we cut by some fine heady quarrel

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seen in private life or in public
affairs, by some denunciatory act against what

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we are pleased to call our neighbor's
vices, might yet have been unwoven by

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the hand of sympathy. To look
back upon the past year, and to

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see how little we have striven into
what small purpose, and how often we

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have been cowardly and hung back or
temorarius and rushed unwisely in and how every

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day and all day long, we
have transgressed the law of kindness. It

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may seem a paradox, but the
bitterness of these discoveries a certain consolation resides.

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Life is not designed to minister to
a man's vanity. He goes upon

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his long business, most of the
time with a hanging head, and all

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the time like a blind child,
full of rewards and pleasures. As it

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is so that to see the day
break where the moon rise, or to

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meet a friend, or to hear
the dinner call when he is hungry,

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fills him with surprising joys. This
world is yet for him no abiding city

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friendships fall through, health fails,
weariness assails him. Year after year.

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He must thumb the hardly varying record
of his own weakness and folly. It

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is a friendly process of detachment.
When the time comes that he should go,

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there need be few illusions left about
himself. Here lies one who meant

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well, tried a little, failed
much. Surely that may be his epitaph,

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of which he need not be ashamed. Nor will he complain at the

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summons which calls a defeated soldier from
the field. Defeated I if he were

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Paul or Marcus Aurelius. But if
there is still one inch of fight in

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his old spirit, undishonored the faith
which sustained him in his life long blindness

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and life long disappointment will scarce even
be required in this last formality of laying

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down his arms, give him a
march with his old bones. There out

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of the glorious sun colored earth,
out of the day and the dust and

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the ecstasy. There goes another faithful
failure from recent book of Verse, where

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there is more than one such beautiful
and manly poem. Take this memorial piece.

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It says better than I can what
I love to think. Let it

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be our parting word. A late
lark twitters from the quiet skies, and

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from the west, where the sun
his day's work ended, lingers as in

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content. There falls on the old
gray city an influence luminous and serene,

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a shining peace. The smoke ascends
in a rosy golden haze, The spires

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shine and are changed. In the
valley, shadows rise, The lark sings

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on the sun closing his benediction sinks, and the darkening air thrills with the

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sense of the triumphant night night,
with her train of stars and her great

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gift of sleep. So be my
passing, my task accomplished, in the

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long day, done, my wages
taken, and in my heart, some

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late lark singing. Let me be
gathered to the quiet west, the sun

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down, splendid and serene death.
End of a Christmas sermon,