GOD REST YE--

Christmas-time has always been the time for singing. The Yule festivities have changed from country to country and from century to century, but song has always had a part in them. Whether it is unconscious echo of the song of the angels over Bethlehem, or because music is the highest expression of the happiness that is the heart of the Christmas season, no one can tell. It is enough that men sing who do not sing at any other time.

It is remarkable, too, that there has been no signal contribution to Christmas music in the last few years. Except for the one hymn of Phillips Brooks which is a part of every Christmas, the songs that are sung are those of men of two and three and more centuries ago, when Christmas meant more, perhaps, than it does now; written, not with skill according to technique, but from their hearts. That they are sung today without question, without thinking of the ignorance which put Palestine shepherds watching over their flocks in the snow that covered the more familiar English fields, is proof that the spirit of Christmas has never been more truly given to the world in music.

Tonight and tomorrow the annual Christmas service will be held in Appleton Chapel. The singing of carols will be only a sharing of the chorus caught by generation after generation, fused in the community of an experience that might be Christmas itself. To the University it is.