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The craftsman
(December 1909)

Kitchel, Kelsey Percival
To you,   p. 237


Page 237


TO YOU
ure of giving gifts at Christmastide? If not, how may we save this
festival devised in honor of unselfishness, kindness, truth?
    There seems no answer-save through children. Always in all
matters of betterment, of reformation, there seems nowadays but one
way of accomplishment-through the children. "Except ye become
as a little child" is a phrase truly fraught with significance when
we
stop to consider how all hope of lessening crime, all effort toward
more practical education, all desire for simpler, saner living in modern
times inevitably turn to the youth of the land for solution. In truth
must they also become the saviors of the Christmas festival. Only
when the little children are once more taught the true beauty and
goodness of Christ's life, and how every gift at Christmas is but a
symbol of his generosity and unselfish attitude toward his fellow
men, can we hope to rekindle the spiritual light of the Christmastide,
saving it from bargain counters and private exchanges, making it once
again the festival of peace on earth, good will to men.
                          TO YOU
           T never was the face of you,
               (God's hand was in the making, though)
               It never was your body's strength,
             That made my whole heart love you so.
           It was no clever turn of speech;
             Nor master-craftsman's faultless skill;
           Not for your tongue nor yet your work,
             Did my soul seek to do your will.
           It was because you never lied;
             Because your heart was clean and true;
           Because your face was toward the fight-
             It was the soldier's soul of you!
                               KELSEY PERCIVAL KITCHEL.
237


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