Let Us Be Thankful

A Few Glad Thoughts which Should be of Comfort at Christmas Time

STEPHEN LEACOCK

WITH the approach of the Glad Season, the thoughts of all pious persons, such as the readers of this magazine, ought to turn to the consideration of what a lot we have to be thankful for.

Of late there has been a tendency to repine. Again and again I go into a man's office and find him all humped up in his chair, repining. I have to lift him up by the coat collar and set him straight again.

After all, whatever troubles there may be around us, here we are on the good old earth still spinning round as usual. When I say spinning, perhaps I ought to qualify it a little. It appears from the discoveries of Professor Einstein of Berlin, made public since last Christmas, that she is not spinning quite as she did. It seems that the spacial content of the cone described by the prolongation of the earth's axis is not what we thought it was.

But, personally, I never expected that it would be. Things never are. It is proved now that space is only a relative conception and that the earth is really moving constantly round a corner. This means that the future life of our planet is greatly shorter than had been supposed. Instead of the fifty million years that we had confidently expected, it appears that we are not likely to have more than five million. But what of that? Let us enjoy our five million years while we can. If the earth doesn't spin as well as it did, it still spins. That's something.

Then, in the next place, we look about us at this glad Yule tide and we see the beautiful prospect of a world at peace. After the long years of war, that alone should make us thankful—the mere thought that at last we have peace. At least, when one says peace, I suppose more properly one ought to modify the expression just a little bit. From last week's papers it seems that the Bolsheviki, about a million of them, took a drive at the Ukrainians, and that the Little Russians, about two hundred thousand of the wee fellows, are getting ready for a drive against the Letts and the Liths. But let them drive. They've got the driving habit.

And, anyway, I don't believe they really hurt one another. So, too, the Hindoos are in a state of effervescence. All right, let them seethe. I understand that at any moment a republican revolution may break out in Italy, and a monarchical counter-revolution may overwhelm Germany. The Arabs in Africa ,are talking about a Jehab, or sacred war, against the Christians, and the Christians are plotting against the French.

On our own side of the water they say the ground beneath our feet is honey-combed with radical insurrection. Mexico is said to be preparing to invade the United States, and the Virgin Islands are on the brink of a Declaration of Independence.

Still, all said and done, this is peace. Let us look abroad and enjoy the prospect. It seems almost too bright to last. But, at least, if anyone breaks it we can write and tell the League of Nations on them.

One turns to the home. Is it not at least something to be thankful for at Christmas time, that we still have a roof above our heads to shelter us? When I say 'we have a roof', possibly it would be better to shade the expression somewhat. It is unfortunately true that a good many of us have no roof, owing to the shortage of houses. The census now shows that we have about 105,000,000 people in the United States, with only housing accommodation for 100,000,000. There are five million homeless people among us this Christmas time. It is only too true. I have myself seen them sitting round in the cabarets and palm rooms at two o'clock in the morning.

Rolled Iron and Oats

ANOTHER very real reason that we have for being thankful is that, at last, the dreadful pressure of the high cost of living is passing away. Prices are coming down. Wheat fell two cents last week. Rolled iron is off at least two dollars a ton, and steel in bars is getting cheaper every day.

In other words, all the old home comforts are coming back to us. Crude oil came down four cents yesterday, and oats went down eight cents a bushel. Any man can step out this Christmas Eve and fetch home a gallon of crude oil and a peck of oats and put six cents clear profit into his pocket. More than this, the market reports show that leather is very restless, that pulp is nervous, and that there is a strong undercurrent in cement, and an absolute collapse of bricks and tiles. I tell you, we are coming into our own very fast.

Another cause that I find for devout gratitude at this season of the year lies in the improved way in which, of late, we have learned to keep Christmas Day. We are at last getting our Christmas Day functions on a proper professional basis, in keeping with the spirit of the time. In the church, which I don't attend, the Christmas morning service used to be disfigured by the singing of such things as Hark the Herald Angels Sing, by the entire congregation in unison.

As I remember, we used to stand up and sing it all together. The discordance was such that one could hardly hear oneself sing. We have now changed all that. This Christmas we have engaged a professional quartette, four of the very biggest people in the vaudeville circuit. We are to pay them a hundred dollars each with a percentage on the offertory. They are to sing us an anthem—an aria that we engaged a man, one of the principal librettists of the New York stage, to write for us. The anthem is to consist simply of the word Hark! repeated in various ways. We, the congregation, (I say "we" for I have invited a party of friends to come with me after a breakfast at one of the hotels), are simply to sit in our places and the quartet will sing Hark till the pastor pushes a button for them to stop.

We don't have to pray at all, or to move. If the applause warrants it, there is to be, as an encore, a solo anthem by the tenor. He is to sing Now a Heavenly Child is Born, but he is not to use it all, but just to take the word Now and keep singing it. If he is not encored, we pay him nothing.

After the singing, in place of the old-fashioned sermon that used to be so wearisome, we are to have a set of moving pictures. It is a reel that we had made specially. It shows ourselves, the congregation, first — standing outside the church talking, and then it shows us going into the church talking, and then coming out, talking on the steps. It is wonderfully interesting and we think it will put a lot of "pep" into the service and be a big ad.

Then, to keep up the religious tone of it we have inserted titles and run them through the film. The titles read: "Xmas! Xmas! Who was born on Xmas? Rah! Rah! Rah!"

Grace in Public

I HAVE no doubt that a great many other churches are planning a Christmas service of this kind. But the church service is only a part of the new Christmas.

Among other changes that we've been making lately is that we've quite done away with the old-fashioned family dinner, with the children lined up on each side of the table and with grace at the beginning, and crackers at the end. Now we eat our Christmas dinner at a hotel. There is no doubt there's a touch about a hotel that you can never get at home.4 After all, at home, if you say grace, who hears it? On the other hand, if at a hotel—without in the least posing about it—you rise reverently and ask God to bless the food—you feel that at least someone is listening to you. Then, at a hotel, it is so pleasant on Christmas Day .to feel oneself among strangers. I don't mean to say that one's friends are not all right, but when you want a really good time, at which you feel that you are taken at your full worth, it is so much more delightful to be among strangers. They are so responsive. They laugh so easily at the lightest joke that it's a pleasure to be with them.

And, what's more, if I want to pull one end of a Christmas cracker, I don't want a child at the other end of it. A child isn't strong enough. It is much wiser to have a nice strong woman—not too old, or she might be weak—and preferably in evening dress so that the cracker won't burn her.

After all, it is not such a sad world as you might think. Is it?