Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1878 — The Merry Season. [ARTICLE]

The Merry Season.

Christmas never grows old. The beautiful legends clustering around the name are fresh to young ears, and the old listen as to familiar tales that grow more charming with every recital. Each year as Christmas-tide comes near we realize how curiously blended are old memories and youthful feelings. They do not interfere with each other, and the union is very beautiful. Christmas day, now regarded as the conventional, not the true, date of the birth of Christ, was celebrated in very early times, although the origin of the special festivities of the day is obscure. But its celebration seems to spring from a spontaneous and widespread desire to commemorate an event so important. Many popular Christmas customs doubtless had their source in the age prior to Christ—a fact which will make some of them more easily understood. But kindliness, generous charity, and grateful joy are the feelings which the very name of .Christmas inspires. Christmas saw old wrongs forgiven, Friends long parted reconciled. ******* Many a one that night was merry Who had toiled through all the year. ******* Joy and plenty in the cottage, Peace and feasting in the hall, And the voices of the children Ringing clear above it all.

A special commission in Russia, under the Presidency of Maj. Gen. Clink, are to find out and punish all members of civil and military service implicated in the cqipmissariat embezzlements of the last w»|, Hundreds have been arrested. ""