Then, if ever, we
allow ourselves to go out to others in sympathy expressed by gifts and
good wishes. Then self-forgetfulness in the happiness of others becomes a
temporary fashion. And we find--do we not?--the indulgence of the feeling
so remunerative that we wish there were other days set apart to it. We
can even understand those people who get a private satisfaction in being
good on other days besides Sunday. There is a common notion that this
Christmas altruistic sentiment is particularly shown towards the
unfortunate and the dependent by those more prosperous, and in what is
called a better social position. We are exhorted on this day to remember
the poor. We need to be reminded rather to remember the rich, the lonely,
not-easy-to-be-satisfied rich, whom we do not always have with us. The
Drawer never sees a very rich person that it does not long to give him
something, some token, the value of which is not estimated by its cost,
that should be a consoling evidence to him that he has not lost
sympathetic touch with ordinary humanity. There is a great deal of
sympathy afloat in the world, but it is especially shown downward in the
social scale. We treat our servants--supposing that we are society
--better than we treat each other.
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