The Minister's Hand-book. For Christenings, Weddings, and Funerals. Cloth Sacred Songs for Public Worship. A Hymn and Tune .75 1.00 Leather 1.50 Unitarian Catechism. With an Introduction by E. A. Horton. 20 cents. Per doz., 1.50 " Cloth, Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in "Unity Pulpit.' single copies, 5 cents. Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass. Published weekly. Price $1.50 a year, or 5 cents single copy. Entered at the Post-office, Boston, Mass., as second-class mail matter. CALENDAR, 1891. This is a publisher's announcement, but we present here a fac-simile of the signature of M.J. Savage as it appears under his portrait on the Calendar card which we have issued, and upon which is mounted a block containing a selection made by Mrs. Dora Bascom Smith from Mr. Savage's writings, for each day in the year. For personal use or for a Christmas or New Year's gift, it will be found useful and ornamental. Price, 50 cents. Sent postpaid. GEORGE H. ELLIS, PUBLISHER, 141 Franklin Street, BOSTON. CHRISTMAS: ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND MEANING.* CHRISTMAS has come to be the most wide-spread and the most popular of all our holidays; and it is a delight to see at least once in a year how generally people can engage in a conspiracy that has for its end purely and simply the making of other people happy. They have learned the lesson at last. that the finest, sweetest, highest joy is that which they see reflected in the eyes of other people. They have learned the lesson of the solidarity of mankind, that no one can be happy alone, and that the truest happiness for the self is to be found in the forgetting of self and the devotion of all faculties and powers to the ministry that has for its end the joy of somebody else. It is only recently in our New England that this festival has come to have so general a hold on the people. By the Puritans and by the dissenters generally in Old England it was looked upon with suspicion. Why? Because it had been for a long time a very popular ceremony both in the Church of Rome and in the Church of England; and it was looked upon as savoring dangerously of papistry and conformity with that which they regarded as false in religion and dangerous to the welfare of men. So that it is only within a few years that Christmas has been much observed by the dissenters of Old England or the Puritans of New England. I do not know how it was in Boston at that time; but, when I was a boy down in Maine, Christmas was celebrated as a day on which a verbal wish was expressed. All that I remember about it was that I was very anxious to be * Stenographically reported. |