Christmas Decorations
When our young friends ‘use their taste, and skill, in what seems, on the surface of things, a sacred work, — the beautifying of God’s sanctuary for a holy festival, do they ever consider that, whatever the theoretical aim may be, the practical result is, necessarily and distinctly, temptation? Temptation, moreover, in exact proportion to the taste and skill displayed! The experience of every honest conscience shows that when we, who naturally love all that is beautiful, enter a church beautifully decorated, the temptation to wandering eyes and thoughts is just in proportion to the exquisiteness and elaborateness of the decorations. We have come to seek Jesus, to find the Shepherd “‘ by the footsteps of the flock’’; we want to commune with Him, and we want Him to speak to our hearts; we want to be freshly and specially ‘‘looking unto Jesus” in all the meaning of that word, looking away from all else, looking unto Him. And at once our eye is caught by an elegant festoon, and a singularly effective twining of a pillar or picking out of a moulding, and a most charming device on the reading desk, and a novel arrangement of the panels of the pulpit. It is all YBvely, much prettier than last year, the general effect is so good, and so on. And suddenly we remember what we came for, and we make a great effort to turn away our eyes and fix them on “‘ Jesus only”; but somehow the electric chain has been severed, the other things have entered in; and when we again look up, to meet the smile of the ‘‘ Prince of Peace,” we find there has been ‘ something between”; our eyes have involuntarily turned away from the ‘‘ King in His beauty” to the passing prettiness of garland and wreath. What have we not lost? But simple texts of Scripture I see no objection to.
The dilemma for the decorators is, do they wish their work to be looked at and admired, or do they not? If not, why put it where it must attract the eye? But if they do, let them remember that the mind cannot be equally occupied with two things at the same time; and that the moments spent in admiring gaze on their graceful work cannot be spent in adoring gaze on the Lord of Christmas, the Altogether Lovely One.
But there is something to be said for ‘‘Christmas decorations,” where they will lead to no wandering thoughts in worship. If our bright young decorators could but see the gleam, on suffering or aged faces, when ‘‘a bit of Christmas” reaches the lonely lives in a hospital or workhouse ward; if they would but listen to the echo from the Mount of Olives, ‘‘ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me”; surely they would gladly try to use their taste and energies for them, instead of the mere delectation, or even spiritual hindrance, of a fashionable congregation. It would be so easy; just a little bouquet of evergreens, for each poor bedside; just a little festoonery, for the bare walls; just a Christmas motto or two; they cannot tell, till they have seen for themselves, what an amount of pleasure they would give to those who have so little to cheer them! Will not some of our young friends do this little service for the Master’s sake this next Christmas, each in his or her own locality? For London, they might communicate with the Hon. Secretary of the Flower Mission, 3, Clyde Street, S.W., or with the Secretary of the Mildmay Flower Mission, Deaconess House, Mildmay Park, N.; or the workgmight be done in the country workhouses and infirmaries, for, as a rule, far less is done to brighten them than the larger ones.
Where there is a will there is a way, and, as an old poet says, *‘love will find out the way.” May the love of Christ constrain many, even in this, not to please themselves, but Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost.
F. R. H. (1875.)