A Quaker Weekly in THIS ISSUE Big Christmas Village Christmas The
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A Quaker Weekly VOLUME 4 DECEMBER 13, 1958 NUMBER 45 IN THIS ISSUE Big Christmas ~UST fo' a f•w houn on . by Mildred Binns Young Christmas Eve and Christmas Day the stupid, harsh mech anism of the world runs down, Village Christmas and we permit ourselves to by Natalie Pierce Kent live according to untrammeled common sense, the unconquer The Little Inn and Its Keeper able efficiency of good will. by Ellis W. Bacon We grant ourselves the com plete and selfish pleasure of loving others better than our Letter from selves. j ust for a few hours London we "purge out of every heart the lurking grudge." We know . by Horace P. then that hatred is a form of Pointing illness; that suspicion and pride are only fear; that the rascally acts of others are per Poetry haps, in the queer webwork by Dorothy M. of human relations, due to Williams, Sam some callousness of our own. Bradley, and -CHRISTOPHER MoRLEY Alice M. Swaim FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY -Johann Baemler, c. 1500 $4.50 A YEAR 722 FRIENDS JOURNAL December 13, 1958 FRIENDS JOURNAL Poetry Carol for Lambs By DOROTHY M . WILLIAMS Hark to the carol for lambs In the meadow of Christmas morning. Tenderly, love's shepherd boy Lifts up his song of caring To carol for the wandering lambs. Publlahed weekly, except during July and August when published biweekly, at 1616 Cherry Street, Philadel He gathers them lonely, inviting phia 2, Pennsylvania (Rittenhouse 6-7669) By Friends Publishing Corporation Their lost and hesitant feet WILLIAM HUBBEN MILDRED A. PURNELL To follow a heavenly piping. Editor and Manager Assistant Editor MYRTLE M. WALLEN FREIDA L . SINGLETON Child in the manger, lie gently Advertisements Subaeriptiona As new lambs lean close to you, listening CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENTS RICHARD R. WOOD, Philadelphia For winds running deep in green pastures Africa ..... ........... ........... Maurice Webb, Durban And the call of a shepherd boy blowing. En~rland ....... .............. Horace B. Pointin~t, London Joan Hewitt. London Germany ..................... .... Lottelore Roloff, Berlin Child in the manger, rest, knowing India ............................ Benjamin Polk, Calcutta Japan ............................. Hilary Conroy, Tokyo This day is the birthday of loving. Lebanon ........ Calvin W. and Gwendolyn Schwabe, Beirut Scandinavia ................ Ole Olden, Stavanger, Norway Switzerland ...................... Robert J. Leach, Geneva Turkey ...................... William L. Nute, Jr.. Ankara Lake Erie Association .... ·· . Winthrop M. Leeds, Pittsbur~rh Midwest (Five Years) ........... Russell E. Rees, Richmond Starshine New England ................. Thomas R. Bodine, Hartford West Coast ................ Ferner Nuhn, Claremont, Calif. By ALICE M. SWAIM BOARD OF MANAGERS Christmas is love and the chance to show it, 1966-1969: Howard H. Brinton, Sarah P. Brock, Ruth 0. Christmas is joy and the grace to know it, Marls, Mar~raret L. Matthews, Lawrence McK. Miller, Jr. 1967-1960: Mar:v R. Calhoun, Eleanor S. Clarke, Barbara Christmas is memory, hope, and desire, L. Curtis, Arthur M. Dewees, Irving Hollingshead, Emily C. Johnson, Elizabeth H. Kirk. 1968-1961: Carol P. Brain Loving hearts at peace round a glowing fire. erd, Daniel D. Test, Jr., Anne Wood, Mildred B. Youq. THE JOURNAL ASSOCIATES are friends who add five dollars or more to their subscriptions annually to help Christmas is starshine in every man's sky, meet the over-all cost of publication. Laughter and wonder in every child's eye, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: United States, possessions, Can ada, and Mexico: $4.60 a year, $2.60 for six months. Shepherds and angels caroling clear, Foreign countries: $6.00 a year. Single copies: fifteen cents. Cheeks should be made payable to Friends Journal. Heaven come down for a moment each year. Sample copies sent on request. Second Claae Postage Paid at Philadelphia, Pa. Who Comes to Fulfill? By SAM BRADLEY Eight-pointed, perfect, double-imaged Star, Contents Waken a savior: we need now a Child Page Born of our love. And God, be reconciled Poetry 722 Unto our love, a vast responding choir. Editorial Comments . 723 0 miracles, be bells! let nothing mar Big Christmas-Mildred Binns Young ............. 724 Our carol: be heaven willing to a wild Village Christmas-Natalie Pierce Kent ........... 726 Rejoicing-not to cease! God's Self has smiled: The Little Inn and Its Keeper-Ellis W. Bacon . 728 Crosses must cease, and this vain hurt of war. A Lamb and a Star (poem)-Dorothy M. Williams. 728 And His peace come. This day, this star, herald all Letter from London-Horace B. Pointing . 728 Plurals resolved, and we may hear the truth The AFSC Material Aids Program . 729 Told simply, as by shepherds come to praise. Books 730 0 hills, kneel down. And jealous nations, fall! Friends and Their Friends . 730 Let not the Herod-swords destroy our youth; Letters to the Editor . ..... ... .. ......... ..•.. 731 Let mercy-0 please, God!-cloak all our ways! FRIENDS JOURNAL Successor to THE FRIEND (1827-1955) and FRIENDS INTELLIGENCER (1844-1955) EsTABLISHED 1955 PHILADELPHIA, DECEMBER 13, 1958 VOL. 4-No. 45 Editorial Comments No Old-Fashioned Christmas low, and there will be no shortage of men and women vol VEN the most conservative will admit, if only in the unteering to be catapulted into space, either to live or die E silence of their hearts, that the celebration of an old· somewhere up there. As the old juxtaposition of heaven fashioned Christmas "as though nothing had happened" and earth is gone, the old-fashioned Christmas has also is no longer given to us. This is the stark truth in spite of disappeared. Should we regret it? Was there not in it a bit the traditional paraphernalia that embellish the holidays too much sentimentality or naivete of the kind that fails to with the beauty we would never want lost. Candlelight, evoke an act of commitment? Has not Christmas been also the Christmas tree, Christmas songs, and family giving of too much of a feast of commemoration instead of a season meaningful presents-these we must never omit. We must of rededication? W. H. Auden, the poet so eminently never allow the plastic commercialism of our stores to capable of reflecting modem man's skeptical indifference obliterate the simple and telling deeds of this season's and coldness, writes in his ironic poem "After Christmas": warmth, joy, and love. No new geophysical discoveries To do more than entertain it as an agreeable must ever be allowed to dim the radiance of the Bethle Possibility, once again we have sent Him away, hem star. No Russian or United States sputniks circling Begging though to remain His disobedient servant, our globe can ever arouse more than a strange mixture of The promising child who cannot keep His word for fear and wonder, while the Bethlehem star continues in long. majestic continuity to send its message, without benefit or How long will the child keep his promise? Is the ap· hindrance of science, geography, or political boundaries. pearance of entirely new astronomical worlds a first threat Our children may clamor for space suits and shoot off to the monopoly of the Bethlehem star? Is it a warning to space missiles in quantities even more liberal than our us to become at long last men of good will before we get well-heeled generals can afford. Yet they want the mythi· ready to visit the lawless regions of space? Do we not cal star of Bethlehem preserved as stubbornly as the scien perhaps need an ultimate reminder to heed the vision tists, about whose readiness again to favor religion and because we may not be able to count on it again twelve faith one hears such astounding stories. \ months from now? Should our vision not be at long last Christmas has not remained untouched by the circum- more than an agreeable possibility? stances surrounding us. Our fears have become persistent, if not greater, and our joys have become tempered. Gone This, then, is our cosmic picture: the Bethlehem star is the old Christmas formula of men living on earth while is assuming a prophetic rank greater than ever. Its mag in the hea'9'ens angels proclaim peace to those of good will, netism is becoming stronger as we are beginning to feel at and a single star dominates all others. Suddenly, and too home elsewhere in the cosmos. And as we return to its fast for our comprehension, the cosmos has become an area mild radiance, we appreciate and understand its message of history, and stars have assumed a metallic, if not hostile, more than ever without computing machines, launching radiance. We have been reminded that they are uncounted bases, and telescopes. We know that the promise of peace light years away, that new galaxies are being discovered, was given only to men of good will. Now, without delay, and that those nebulous heavenly mists are innumerable as the worlds around and above us move closer hour by milky ways, fantastically vast systems of unfathomable di hour, we must become such men. mensions-and all this we have learned in a too rapid sequence of time. Our longing to see, explore, and exploit In Brief has aroused our boldest desires. And now we are shooting There are about 500 Protestant colleges in the United off missiles to circle the moon or possibly remote starry States, of which 375 are church-related and 125 inde systems. One living being, the Russian dog Laika, was pendent. Enrollment in 1956 was about 450,000 students. lifted into the cosmos, to die the loneliest death ever ex There are also 265 Roman Catholic and five Jewish perienced by any living creature. Other animals will fol- colleges. 723 724 FRIENDS JOURNAL December 13, 1958 Big Christmas By MILDRED BINNS YOUNG ROM the sixteen Christmas seasons that we spent them; or we cook rich food and invite people who are not F among very poor people in the South, I have remem hungry, and sit down and feast with them.