EDITORIAL FROM 1968: Most precious gifts of Christmas
There is an abundance of opportunity in the world to do good that overshadows any abundance of material goods.
If there is an abundance of opportunity, however, the acts of good are as specks in comparison to it.
There is a dreadful need for converting good intentions into good works. There is a wide gap between thinking good and doing good. There is an abyss between mouthing platitudes and acting them out.
This wide moral gap is most noticeable in the Christmas season.
Yes, there are outstanding examples of sacrifice and, if you will, of Christianity, during the holiday season. The Salvation Army pots don’t exactly run over, but the collections are still substantial. The special envelopes bring in a windfall for the church. Service clubs stage parties for the poor, the old and the forgotten.
But who can put a value on a simple act of tolerance, a single act of understanding, a small act of forgiveness, not only in the Christmas season but all through the year?
One act of forgiveness would fill all of the Christmas kettles. One tolerant gesture would overflow the collection plates. One bit of understanding would warm a thousand hearts.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” says naught but what the church has attempted to teach for nearly 2,000 years.
From that teaching of love has sprung the ideals of tolerance, brotherhood, sacrifice, understanding which were it possible to imprison in the Christmas stocking would make not only the largest stocking but by far the most valuable Christmas gift of all time.
There are many material things about us. Christmas sales have broken all records. We are sure the various charities have benefited from the swell of material things in a rich nation.
The Christmas trees are brightly and gaily lighted. But how much more brightly would the lights shine and how much more gay the ornaments if hanging on the tree in each home would be a tinsel of tolerance, a bough of brotherhood, a string of sacrifice, or a crystal of understanding.