People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 December 1892 — CHRISTMAS GIVING. [ARTICLE]

CHRISTMAS GIVING.

Let It Be with a Loving Heart, and Nothing That Yon Begrudge. It has been nearly two thousand years since the first beautiful Christmas gift came on earth, and it was received with gladness and joy by shepherd and king alike. To-day, in memory of that, I give you some little trifle, because I love ycra, but I give it so ungraciously you scarcely like to take it. A pretty way to send a gift is to do it up in one of the colored tissue papers, tie it with the extremely narrow ribbon that can be bought for a few pennies, the whole twelve yards, and so give your friend the pleasure of untying the mysterious box, of removing the pretty ribbons and of coming to the surprise at last, the something for which she has longed for many a day. I know a wojaan who has wanted a pincushion ten years, who in that time has gotten two diamond bracelets and innumerable rings, but the long-loolced-for pin-cushion has never come. She still hopes for it, and believes that this year will certainly bring it. You say: “Why not buy it?” Well, now, who ever bought a pin-cushion without the intention of giving it to somebody else? It is always a something given to you and not bought. Give with a loving and full heart, and never, under any circumstances, give that which you begrudge. Such a gift will bear no fruit for you, not even the honest fruit of thanks. You can quote as many times as you want that ‘‘Unto him that hath shall be given,” and so it shall, because it is just this way, my friend: You possess the gifts of gentleness and graciousness, of politeness and of goodness, and these are gifts that call others to them. If people are cross and disagreeable there is •very slight inclination to wish them a ‘merry Christmas; if they are irritable and snappish nobody cares whether they are blessed with a Christmas present or not; but unto her who hath the graces which I have cited will certainly come a basket full of good gifts, “pressed down, shaken together and running over. ” —Ruth Ashmore, in Ladies’ Home Journal.