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Speaker 1: A Christmas sermon. By the time this paper appears, I

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shall have been talking for twelve months, and it is

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thought I should take my leave in a formal and

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

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not often hit the mark of the occasion. Charles Second,

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wit and skeptic, a man whose life has been one

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long lesson in human incredulity, an easy going comrade, a

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maneuvering king remembered and embodied all his wit and skepticism,

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along with more than his usual good humor. In the

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

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an unconscionable time, a dying there's a picture, I'm afraid, gentlemen,

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of your life and of mine. The sands run out,

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and the hours are numbered and imputed, and the days

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go by, and when the last of these finds us,

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

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The very length is something. If we reach that hour

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of separation undishonored, and to have lived at all all

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is doubtless. In the soldierly expression to have served there

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is a tale, and Tacitus of how the veterans mutinied

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in the German wilderness, of how they mob Germanicus clamoring

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to go home, and of how seizing their general's hands,

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these old war warned exiles passed his finger along their

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

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of the songs of Simeon. And when the man has

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lived to a fair age, he bears his marks of service.

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He may have never been remarked upon the breach at

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the head of the army, at least he shall have

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lost his teeth on the camp bread. The idealism of

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serious people in this age of ours is of a

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notable character. It never seems to them that we have

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served enough. They have a fine impatience of their virtues.

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It were perhaps more modest to be stingily thankful that

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we are no worse. It is not only our enemies,

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those desperate characters. It is we ourselves who know not

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what we do. Thence springs the glimmering hope that perhaps

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we do better than we think, that to scramble through

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this random business with hands reasonably clean, to have played

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the part of a man or a woman with some

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reasonable fullness to have often resisted the diabolic, and at

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the end to be still resisting. It is for the

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poor human soldier to have done right well. To ask

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to see some fruit of our endeavor is but a

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transcendental way of serving for reward. And what we take

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to be contempt of self is only greed of hire.

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

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we not require much of others? If we do not

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genially judge our own deficiencies, is it not to be feared?

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We shall be even stern to the trespasses of others.

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And he who looking back on his own life can

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see no more than that he has been unconscionably long

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a dying. Will he not be tempted to think his

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neighbor unconsciably long of getting hanged. It is probable that

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nearly all who think of conduct at all think of

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it too much. It is certain we all think too

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much of sin. We are not damned for doing wrong,

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but for not doing right. Christ would never hear of

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negative morality. Thou shalt was ever his word with which

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he superseded. Thou shalt not to make our idea of

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morality center on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination,

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and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow men

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a secret element of gusto. If a thing is wrong

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for us, we should not dwell upon the thought of it,

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or we shall soon dwell upon it with introverted pleasure

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if we cannot drive it from our minds. One thing

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of two. Either our creed is in the wrong, and

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we must more indulgently remodel it, or else, if our

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morality be in the right, we are criminal lunatics, and

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should place our persons in restraint. A mark of such

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unwholesomely divided minds is the passion for interference with others.

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The fox without the tail was of this breed, but

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had if his biographer is to be trusted a certain

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

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a flaw, a weakness that unfits him for the duties

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of life, that spoils his temper, that threatens his integrity,

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or that betrays him into cruelty. It has to be conquered,

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but it must never be suffered to engross his thoughts.

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The true duties lie all upon the farther side, and

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must be attended to with a whole mind. So soon

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as this preliminary clearing of the decks has been effected,

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in order that he may be kind and honest, it

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may be needful he should become a total abstainer. Let

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him become so then, and the next day let him

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forget the circumstance trying to be kind and honest will

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require all his thoughts. A mortified appetite is never a

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wise companion. In so far as he has had to

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mortify an appetite, he will still be the worst man.

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And of such an one, a great deal of cheerfulness

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will be requiredired in judging life, and a great deal

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of humility in judging others. And may be argued again

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that dissatisfaction with our life's endeavor springs in some degree

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from dullness. We require higher tasks because we do not

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recognize the height of those we have. Trying to be

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kind and honest seems an affair too simple and too

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inconsequential For gentlemen of our heroic mold. We had rather

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

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

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

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which is to co endure with our existence, is rather

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one of microscopic fineness, and the heroism required is that

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of patience. There is no cutting of the Gordian knots

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

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to be kind, to earn a little and spend a

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little less, to make upon the whole a family happier

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for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary,

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

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these without capitulation, above all on the same grim condition

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to keep friends with himself. Here is a task for

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all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. He

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has an ambitious soul who would ask more. He has

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a hopeful spirit, who should look in such an enterprise

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to be successful. There is indeed one element in human

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destiny that not blindness itself, can controvert. Whatever else we

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

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Failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every

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art and study. It is so above all in the

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continent art of living well. Here is a pleasant thought

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for the year's end and for the end of life,

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only self deception will be satisfied, and there need be

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no despair for the despairer. Two. But Christmas is not

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the only mile mark of another year, moving us to

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thoughts of self examination. It is a season from all

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its associations, whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of joy.

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A man dissatisfied with his endeavors is a man tempted

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to sadness. And in the midst of the winter, when

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his life runs lowest and he is reminded of the

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empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should

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be condemned to this fashion of the smiling face. Noble disappointment,

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noble self denial are not to be admired, not even

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to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one

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thing to enter the Kingdom of heaven, maime another to

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maim yourself and stay without. And the Kingdom of Heaven

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is of the childlike, of those who are easy to please,

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who love and who give pleasure. Mighty men of their hands,

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the smiters and the builders and the judges have lived

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long and done sternly, and yet preserved this lovely character.

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And among our carpet interests and two penny concerns. The

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shame were indelible if we should lose it. Gentleness and

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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

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have neither one nor the other. It was the moral man,

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the pharisee, whom Christ could not away with. If your

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morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong.

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I do not say give them up, for they may

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be all you have, but conceal them like a vice,

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lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler people.

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A strange temptation attends upon man to keep his eye

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on pleasures, even when he will not share in them,

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to aim all his morals against them. This very year

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a lady singular iconoclast proclaimed a crusade against dolls, and

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the racy's sermon against lust is a feature of the age.

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I venture to call such moralists insincere at any excess

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or perversion of a natural appetite. Their liar sounds of

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itself with relishing denunciations. But for all displays of the

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truly diabolic envy, malice, the mean lie, the mean silence,

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the calumniust truth, the backbiter, the petty tyrant, the peevish

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

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

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There is no zeal in their assault on them, no

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secret element of gusto warms up the sermon. It is

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for things not wrong in themselves that they reserve the

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choicest of their indignation. A man may naturally disclaim all

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moral kinship with the reverend, mister Zola, or the hobgoblin

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old lady of the Dolls, for these are gross and

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naked instances. And yet in each of us some similar

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element resides. The sight of a pleasure in which we

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cannot or else will not share, moves us to a

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particular impatience. It may be because we are envious, or

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because we are sad, or because we dislike noise and romping.

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Being so refined, or because being so philosophic, we have

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an overweighing sense of life's gravity. At least, as we

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go on in years, we are all tempted to frown

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upon our neighbor's pleasures. People are nowadays so fond of

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resisting temptations. Here is one to be resisted they are

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fond of self denial. Here is the propensity that cannot

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be too peremptorily denied. There is an idea abroad among

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moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person,

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I have to make good myself. But my duty to

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my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that

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I have to make him happy if I may three

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happiness and goodness. According to Canting, moralists stand in relation

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of effect and cause. There was never anything less proved

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or less probable. Our happiness is never in our own hands.

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We inherit our constitution. We stand buffet among friends and enemies.

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We may be so built as to feel a sneer

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or an aspersion with unusual keenness, and so circumstanced as

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to be unusually exposed to them. We may have nerves

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very sensitive to pain, and be afflicted with a disease

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very painful. Virtue will not help us, and it is

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not meant to help us. It is not even its

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

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almost said the unamiable. No man can pacify his conscience.

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If quiet be what he wants, he shall do better

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to let the organ perish from disuse, and to avoid

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the penalties of the law and the minor capitis di

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minuto of social ostracism is an affair of wisdom, of cunning,

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if you will, and not of virtue in his own life.

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Then a man is not to expect happiness, only to

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profit by it gladly when it shall arise. He is

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on duty here. He knows not how or why, and

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does not need to know. He knows not for what hire,

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and must not ask somehow or other. Though he does

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not know what goodness is, he must try to be

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good somehow or other, though he cannot tell what will

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do it. He must try to give happiness to others,

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And no doubt there comes in here a frequent clash

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of duties. How far is he to make his neighbor happy?

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How far must he respect that smiling face so easy

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to cloud, so hard to brighten again. How far on

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the other side is he bound to be his brother's

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keeper and the profit of his own morality? How far

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must he resent evil? The difficulty is that we have

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little guidance Christ's sayings on the point being hard to

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reconcile with each other, and the most of them hard

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to accept, But the truth of his teaching would seem

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

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should be ready to accept and to pardon all. It

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is our cheek. We are to turn our coat. We

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are to give away to the man who has taken

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our cloak. But when another's face is buffeted, perhaps a

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little of the lion will become us. Best. That we

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are to suffer others to be injured and stand by

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

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

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are delivered by an insane judge. And in our own

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quarrel we can see nothing truly and do nothing wisely.

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But in the quarrel of our neighbors, let us be

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

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When we cannot defend both, let us defend one with

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a stout heart. It is only in so far as

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we are doing this that we have any right to interfere.

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The defense of b is our only ground of action

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against a A has as good a right to go

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to the devil as we to go to glory, and

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neither knows what he does. The truth is that all

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these interventions and denunciations and militant mongerings of moral half truths,

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though they be sometimes needful, though they are often enjoyable,

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do yet belong to an inferior grade of duties. Ill

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temper and envy and revenge find here an arsenal of

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pious disguises. This is the playground of inverted lusts. With

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a little more patience and a little less temper, a

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gentler and wiser method might be found in almost every case.

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And the knot that we cut by some fine heady

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quarrel seen in private life or in public affairs, by

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some denunciatory act against what we are pleased to call

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our neighbor's vices, might yet have been unwoven by the

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

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and to see how little we have striven into what

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small purpose, and how often we have been cowardly and

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hung back or temorarius and rushed unwisely in and how

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every day and all day long, we have transgressed the

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law of kindness. It may seem a paradox, but the

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bitterness of these discoveries a certain consolation resides. Life is

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

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upon his long business, most of the time with a

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hanging head, and all the time like a blind child,

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full of rewards and pleasures. As it is so that

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to see the day break where the moon rise, or

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to meet a friend, or to hear the dinner call

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when he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys. This

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world is yet for him no abiding city friendships fall through,

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health fails, weariness assails him. Year after year. He must

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

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It is a friendly process of detachment. When the time

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comes that he should go, there need be few illusions

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left about himself. Here lies one who meant well, tried

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

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of which he need not be ashamed. Nor will he

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complain at the summons which calls a defeated soldier from

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the field. Defeated I if he were Paul or Marcus Aurelius.

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But if there is still one inch of fight in

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his old spirit, undishonored the faith which sustained him in

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his life long blindness and life long disappointment will scarce

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even be required in this last formality of laying down

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his arms, give him a march with his old bones.

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There out of the glorious sun colored earth, out of

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the day and the dust and the ecstasy. There goes

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another faithful failure from recent book of Verse, where there

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is more than one such beautiful and manly poem. Take

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this memorial piece. It says better than I can what

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I love to think. Let it be our parting word.

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A late lark twitters from the quiet skies, and from

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

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as in content. There falls on the old gray city

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an influence luminous and serene, a shining peace. The smoke

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ascends in a rosy golden haze, The spires shine and

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

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on the sun closing his benediction sinks, and the darkening

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air thrills with the sense of the triumphant night night,

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with her train of stars and her great gift of sleep.

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So be my passing, my task accomplished, in the long day, done,

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my wages taken, and in my heart, some late lark singing.

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Let me be gathered to the quiet west, the sun down,

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splendid and serene death. End of a Christmas sermon,