BEFORE THE BATTLE TRUCE

It is the eve of the traditional ten-day holiday which has existed as a ten-day holiday from the creation of the world and the Board of Overseers, and will continue to exist as such although the seven heavens fall. Already the exultant van of the home ward-bound army, those who live somewhere west of Chicago, has begun the long trek. Today the last man who has a home and money will leave.

Vacation has always the pleasant anticipation for most college men of unlimited sleep, unlimited spending money and unlimited perfervid pleasures. An ever-affectionate family awaits the joy of treating the home-comer as a hero.

These things are highly pleasant, but they do not compose Christmas. They are no more Christmas than the small boy's ideal of a time when he receives the consummation of all his dreams, and eats more than a small boy should ever eat.

If our charity means anything, if that Christianity which we indifferently boast of means anything, then the Yule-tide is far more than a time for personal satisfaction.

We talk a great deal about our prosperity. The well-to-do have become wealthy; the wealthy have become opulent, yet "the poor are always with us." Moreover, their poverty is no whit lessened by the prosperity of those who have so much. What satisfaction may they draw from this season, if its sole meaning is one of abundance?

Across the seas whole nations watch under arms. Last Christmas it was prophesied they would observe a truce of God, but no truce came. On that day which all of a common faith believe holy there was no relax in the revel of death. Where may these untold millions find consolation in the day if it brings no peace?

It is a holiday, the holy day, the holy mass of Christ. If we young men believe what we believe, the contrast of what the world is and what it should be, must be terrible.

Undue pessimism has not value, yet it would be well for every man to remember what this Christ-tide has meant through the centuries, and what it ought to mean to us now; the time to practice the greatest of all virtues, charity.