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About The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 24, 1885)
New Year Bells. Now from every tower and steeple Clan ? the bells with a gladsome sound , Showering down on the hearts of the people The tidings glad of a year-new found , illng away sjrrow and pain and care. Demons that brood o'er the lives of men. Let not the sound of a world's despair Fill our hearts with a deeper pain. Welcome and greetings ; O ! new born year , With thy fair white page on which to write The manifold changes that greet us here. Which our hearts in sorrow or joy invite. Write them down with a golden pen , Blessings many and joys a few. Seek thy thoughts from the hearts of men , Who have dared to do rlxht and lived to be rfrue. Set thylhand to redress each wrong , And never faker In doing right , If to help a fallen comrade along. Or do each duty with all thy might. Duties will come with every day. Scorn them not if they seem but small. From God no action is hid away. And He a recompense llnds for all. So write thy deeds with a go'den pen. Write them down for the book of life Write them down In the heart of men. And be a hero In every strlte. WITH THE OLD YEAR. " Seven eight nine ! Do you hear that ? " asked the old clock in the cor ner. "Here it is a full hour after your bedtime , and yet you sit there staring into the fire ! " In front of the fire sat an old woman gray-haired , wrinkled , feeble. The voice of the clock did not disturb her , but as she watched the fitful flames one could have read her thoughts. "But it's excusable on this night , " continued the clock , in softer tones. "Heigho ! but it's the last night of the dying bed , and if Heaven ever sent its light to lead a soul across the dark valley it was given to him. 1 remem ber your tears and means and sobs , and you prayed that death might come to you as well. " The woman wiped her tears away , and there was a feeling of suffocation as she let memory bring up the events of other years. " Eight nine ten ! " called the clock after awhile. "How time does fly ! It seems scarcely a month since I was striking the last hours of 1S84. Let me see ! Some one wept with you at that bedside. There was a son and a daughter. Ah ! now I recall their faces their gentle ways their loving words. Two years later there was another death-bed more wails and sobs , ami I saw the pall-bearers as they carried the daughter's body out of the house. It seemed as if the last blow must crush you , and I well re member of saying to myself that it wouldn't be long beforeyou werecalled to go. " The woman held her face in her hands and sobbed. "Come ! come ! " chided the clock. "Death is ever busy , and it must come to each and every one. The past is past , and we must put it behind us. How happens it that you are alone to-night ? Where is the son of whom I spoke ? " The woman choked back her sobs , and her lips moved as if she were speaking the names of her dead ones. For many minutes her reverie was un broken , and she heard not the tick- tack ! tick-tack ! of the steady old clock. " Nine ten eleven ! " suddenly said the clock. "The son ? Ah ! how absent- minded I have become ! Well do I re member the day a woman with pale face and frightened eyes opened the door and handed you a letter , which bore the insignia of death. You opened it with trembling fingers , and next moment you were like one dead. There were days and days when you hovered between life and death , and for my part I gave up all hopes. Died in a foreign land buried among strangers over the sea. It was a blow aimed at a heart twice broken. " WAITING TO BE ASKED. old year ! Three hours more and we are done with 1885. You and I are going to watch the old year out to gether. Let's see ! How many years have I seen come and go ? Forty ex actly forty with this one. That's a long , long time. " The woman rocked gently to and fro , and by and by the clock suddenly called out : "What ! Tears in your eyes ! Come , now , but that's no way to end the old year. We were thinking of the same thing. Yes , he was a good and loving husband , and I'll say this for both of you , that I never heard one unpleasant word between you. It is twenty years since he died. I could look into his face as he lay on his The woman covered her face and moaned in anguish , and the clock con tinued : "Don't grieve so ; the dead are at rest f orevermore. Life's mistakes may need to be washed away with tears , but the dead have reaped their re ward. You are old and poor and broken , but who can tell what new friends the New Year may raise up for you ? I cannot tell you to forget the past , for a mother's heart ever goes out for her dead , but the New Year may have some sunshine. Come , now , I am about to strike the Old Year out and the New Year in. Let us greet the New with a smile of welcome as I count ten eleven twelve a happy New Year ! " If I AT FOURTH STREET. The woman did not move. "Heigho ! " called the clock ; "we have left the old behind ! " Her hands had dropped beside her and her head had fallen. "Dead ! " ticked the clock , as the last faint echoes of his bell died away. "Verily , it is so ! The Old Year will lead her soul from earth to eternity ! " CHRISTMAS AND ITS CAROLS. From the time when the angels in augurated the custom , hovering over the stall-cradle of the infant Jesus , carols and songs have ever been the favorite music at the festal season of Christmas , and antiquarians with all their researches have not been able to fix a date at which the popular idea of celebrating the Nativity was not carried out by singing and merry making. The old carols , however , were not the long religious ballads now popular among the peasantry of England , and which were substituted by those close cropped enemies to music and mirth , the Puritans , but dities of good eat ing and drinking and general ] ollity , as may be learned from a rare manu script poem of the fifteenth centuiy : The lewid peple than algates agre , And caroles singen everi criste messe tyde , Not with shamefustenes bob jocondie , And holey bowghes about ; and al usydde The brenning fyre hem etenandhemdriuke , And laughten mereli , and maken route , And pype , and dansen , and hem rager ne , swinke Ne noe thynge els , twalve daye thei woldi not. This is the earliest allusion to the custom of keeping up the Christmas festivities for twelve whichac days , , -ac- counts for our modern Twelfth Night , a great theatrical and general holiday in England , but to which no attention is paid in this country. The ancient carol at the bringing in of the boar's head at Christmas dinners , still sung at Queen's College , Oxford , is as old as the first Henry , for at his coronation , in 1170 , we learn that it was used as follows : Capat Apri defero , Reddens laudesDomino , The bores head in hand bringe I With garlands gay and rosemary I pray you all syiige merreli Qui estes in convivio The bores head I underatande Is the chief service in this lande Loke wherever it be fande Servite cum cantico Almost all the old carols have Latin burdens or intermixtures , show ing their monastic origin , and it was when the English Reformation had established the Episcopalian liturgy that these Latin scraps were banished from the jovial songs of Merry Christ mas , the time when everybody was feasted , when the meanest serving man , the lowliest peasant was welcomed to the most lordly banquetting hall , placed beneath the salt , and among the nobles and fair ladies , sang his rude carols and played his merry pranks ; as we read in an old author , "among the Christmas husbandlie fare , good drink , a good fire in the hall , brawne , pudding and souse , and mus tard with all , beef , mutton and pork shred , pies of the best , pig , veal , goose , capon , and turkey , cheese , apples , and nuts , with a jolly carol of the tune of 'King Solomon. ' " Many of the early Christmas carols are rude in structure , defective in rhyme , and of a childish simplicity in matter which appear very comical to our enlightened generation , while some deal with mericles appertaining to the incarnation , of which nothing short of the most primitive purity could per mit the recitation. Of this latter class is the Carol of Holy Mary and the Cherry Tree , still , in a somewhat mod ernized form , sung by the peasantry and lead miners of the Derbyshire Peak. It commences : Joseph was old man And an old man was he And he married Mary , Queen of Gallilee. Christinas carols were not confined to the birth and babyhood of Christ , but were moulded on other Scriptural subjects , one being called Dives and Lazarus , commencing in the follow ing whimsical manner , which , when drawled out solemnly by a Derbyshire psalm-singer , has a most ludicrous effect : As it fell out upon a day , richDivessicken'd and died , There came too serpents out of hell , his soul therein to guide. Rise up , rise up , brother Dives , and come along with me , For you've a place provided in hell , to sit on a serpent's knee. Another very curious carol of Christ mas time , printed on ballad paper , in black letter , may yet occasionally be found pasted on a Derbyshire cottage wall , which is headed "Christus Natus Est , " and which is ornamented with a rude wood cut of the Nativity , in which are seen a number of domestic animals with labels issuing from their mouths. Thus the rooster crows , "Christus natusest. " The raven asks , "Quando ? " The cow answers , "Hac nocte. " The ox bellows , "Ubi ? Ubi ? " The sheep bleats , "Bethelhem , " while a dove coming out of a cloud , bears in its beak the legend , "Gloria fn Ex- celsis. " Very many of the early carols have been irrevocably lost , as they were handed down orally from generation to generation and never became im prisoned in type , and these of the most singular character , too. Old crones crooned them over to the cradled babes , and young maidens learned them from their grandmothers , but cheap literature and national schools have banished these customs , and the carols have gradually faded from b DOI/LY MUST BE DRESSED. memory , a fragment , a stanza , or a line here and there being heard from the lips of a shepherd lad or a Derby shire milkmaid. Thus the glad songs of Christmas tide which enlivened the festivities of royalty in the days when Christmas had its Christmas carols And ladies' sides were hooped like barrels , descended to the serving men and humble laborer and have eventually been lost. "Thewellbelov'dservant , " who , as Southey tells us , "in his lord's castle dwelt for many a year , " and who could sing Carols for Shrove-tide or for Candlemas , Songs for the Wassel and when the Boar's head Crown'd with gay garlands and with rose mary Smoked on the Christmas board , has made way for the modern fine gentleman immortalized by Thackery and "Punch , " and even the Christmas carol itself has not escaped the degen eration of modern times , but has been used as a medium for advertising , as is seen in "A Christmas Carol on Pekoe Tea , " wherein we are told How Christ was in a manger born , And God dwelt in a bush of thorn , Which bush of thorn appears to me The same that yields the Pekoe tea , and after a long rigmarole of religious fervor and cheap grocery zeal , ends with the devout wish that All who do these truths condemn Ne'er taste one single drop of them Here , or in New Jerusalem , with the added information that Pekoe tea which is perfectly good and fine may be found grateful and useful all the year around , from Christmas to Christmas , at Francis Hoffman's , at the sign of the Golden Caddie on Tower Hill , London. This carol was dedi cated to "Queen Caroline and the Princess Carolina and all the Royal Family , " and was published in 1729. In spite of modern change and novel manners , there seems to be a growing fondness for making much of Christ mas , and long may it be before its celebration shall become obsolete as its carols. IT IS CHILDREN'S DAY. It is the children's day. Heap high the grate and send the sparkles stream- ine up the chimney. Let the roaring flame outroar the chilling blast and melt with Christmas warmth the frosty breath of winter. Bring forth in gen erous store good cheer , fill up the cup to overrunning with wine of joy , let mirth break bounds , and givefree reins to all that buoys and lifts the spirits to above the shocks and weights of the experience of other days. Where e'er the family takes sanctuary let God's love pour its blessed light in radiance brighter than in other days. Through the wide land may a thou sand times ten thousand hearth fires low on happy faces , and in the genial glow may the world of child-life ring with a music born of happiness un wonted. For one day let the better angels of our natures take the harp and make their sweetest melody. Let not one strain be lost nor one discor dant note be struck. Let all that may make merry with gift and game , and greeting and cheer and kindly deed. One day out of the year is not too much , but all too little to give to joyous ministrations , but however much it may and should be made to be to others , its chief felicity is for young hearts yet unwrungby the cares of life. The green wealth of the Christ mas holly and mistletoe harmonizes with the freshness of life's springtime , and every memory and association make this a May-day of young experi ence. For joy and innocence are sis ters , and they are childhood's angels. The Christinas day can be in its full ness what it should be only as the children's day , and only thus can all its meaning be unlocked to older hearts. Give up the day to childhood , and giving thus receive its richest gifts. Make here a day to hang in memory's halls a picture ever bright. Enwreath- ed in evergreen , brightened with smiles of joy , thrilled with the sin-prises of loving ingenuity , crowned with gifts and tenderness , that is the only Christ mas which is illumined by the beams of gladdened eyes and made musical by the silvery chimes of childhood's laughter. Give it to the children , then , and make it all the heaven that heaven-born love can make it. AT TWENTY-FOURTH STREET.
