Do you all remember that when the Wise Men came to the saintly stable and unpacked what they had on the backs of their camels, they gave gifts - gold and frankincense and myrrh? The old proverb is that myrrh was to purify the stable, that gold was a fit offering to a king, and that frankincense was for the worship of God. I do not know whether the Wise Men were wise enough to think this out, but I know they gave the best they had, and I like to remember it. For many, many years, as Christmas time came around, I have told my Sunday-school children in our church what presents the different creatures in the courtly stable gave - how the sheep gave wool for Mary Mother to knit into stockings, how the cows gave milk for Mary Mother to drink and to give to her baby, and how each of the hen biddies brought an egg, because she had nothing else to bring; how each one brought the very best he had. And in all this we see the great lesson, a present which is worth anything carries with it a part of the giver. It is his time, perhaps; it is his careful thought, perhaps; it is his money, perhaps - but it is a part of himself.
One of my dearest friends, and one of the best friends of the country, the late Senator Hoar, used to say that Christmas Day was not fully celebrated for us unless the minister at church had read Milton's Christmas Hymn:
It was the winter wild,
While the heav'n-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
While the heav'n-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Had dofft her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize.
It was the Council of Nicae which fixed the winter solstice, and the days when the sun begins to return to the world, as the time for celebrating the birth at Bethlehem of the Sun of Righteousness. Those people knew a great deal more about it than I do, and for my part, I am very glad that my Christmas holidays come when every day is longer and brighter and gives more hope for daily life. E. E. Hale
Milton's Christmas Hymn
