A Christmas Sermon | Page 2

A mark of such
unwholesomely divided minds is the passion for interference with
others: the Fox without the Tail was of this breed, but had (if his
biographer is to be trusted) a certain antique civility now out of date. A
man may have a flaw, a weakness, that unfits him for the duties of life,
that spoils his temper, that threatens his integrity, or that betrays him
into cruelty. It has to be conquered; but it must never be suffered to
engross his thoughts. The true duties lie all upon the farther side, and
must be attended to with a whole mind so soon as this preliminary
clearing of the decks has been effected. In order that he may be kind
and honest, it may be needful he should become a total abstainer; let
him become so then, and the next day let him forget the circumstance.
Trying to be kind and honest will require all his thoughts; a mortified
appetite is never a wise companion; in so far as he has had to mortify
an appetite, he will still be the worse man; and of such an one a great
deal of cheerfulness will be required in judging life, and a great deal of
humility in judging others.
It may be argued again that dissatisfaction with our life's endeavour
springs in some degree from dulness. We require higher tasks, because
we do not recognise the height of those we have. Trying to be kind and
honest seems an affair too simple and too inconsequential for
gentlemen of our heroic mould; we had rather set ourselves to

something bold, arduous, and conclusive; we had rather found a schism
or suppress a heresy, cut off a hand or mortify an appetite. But the task
before us, which is to co-endure with our existence, is rather one of
microscopic fineness, and the heroism required is that of patience.
There is no cutting of the Gordian knots of life; each must be smilingly
unravelled.
To be honest, to be kind--to earn a little and to spend a little less, to
make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce
when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few
friends but these without capitulation--above all, on the same grim
condition, to keep friends with himself--here is a task for all that a man
has of fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask
more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to
be successful. There is indeed one element in human destiny that not
blindness itself can controvert: whatever else we are intended to do, we
are not intended to succeed; failure is the fate allotted. It is so in every
art and study; it is so above all in the continent art of living well. Here
is a pleasant thought for the year's end or for the end of life: Only
self-deception will be satisfied, and there need be no despair for the
despairer.

II
But Christmas is not only the mile-mark of another year, moving us to
thoughts of self-examination: it is a season, from all its associations,
whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of joy. A man
dissatisfied with his endeavours is a man tempted to sadness. And in
the midst of the winter, when his life runs lowest and he is reminded of
the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should be condemned to
this fashion of the smiling face. Noble disappointment, noble
self-denial are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring
bitterness. It is one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maim; another
to maim yourself and stay without. And the kingdom of heaven is of
the childlike, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give
pleasure. Mighty men of their hands, the smiters and the builders and
the judges, have lived long and done sternly and yet preserved this
lovely character; and among our carpet interests and twopenny
concerns, the shame were indelible if we should lose it. Gentleness and

cheerfulness, these come before all morality; they are the perfect duties.
And it is the trouble with moral men that they have neither one nor
other. It was the moral man, the Pharisee, whom Christ could not away
with. If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong. I
do not say "give them up," for they may be all you have; but conceal
them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better and simpler
people.
A strange temptation attends upon man: to keep his eye on pleasures,
even when he will not share in them; to aim all his morals against them.
This