VI
It is Christmas Eve. I have seated myself by my typewriter in my cozy study, to write the last lines of this story. Mattie is down at the Auditorium, helping to trim the Christmas tree for the children. I just came up from there. Our picturesque little vine-covered bungalow is on the hill. The Christmas tree had so many helpers that I was not needed. Miss Marsh is joyously superintending the whole thing. Our different members are coming and going. Each brings an armful of presents.
I stood a while and watched their beaming, happy faces. Most of them have known a good many Christmas Eves. One-a hearty old Pacific sea-captain of eighty-showed me some toy ships he had whittled out with his knife. He called my attention to all the proper nautical detail. No builder of big ocean liners could have felt more pridein his accomplishment. I watched him carefully place the toy ships with the other presents underneath the Christmas tree; and the fact was impressed upon me that he had caught therealChristmas spirit. He hadcreatedsomething, which would carry his own creative joy into the lives of others. And is not this-the carrying of one’s own creative joy into the lives of others-the very essence of the thing which we vaguely call “service”?
When I reached the brow of the hill on my way home from the Auditorium, I halted and looked back at our little Youthland Colony, lying there in the moonlight. Out beyond, the moonbeams made a glistening pathway to it across the dusky waters of the old Pacific. At the back, rose the dim shapes of the mountains. The sweet odor of orange-blossoms filled the air. In this beautiful spot our little group was trying to realize the creative life-the life of continued growth and usefulness. Deep emotion stirred within me.
My gaze traveled out over the moonlightedocean, and I thought of the many peoples of the globe celebrating this Christmas Eve. Gratitude for my own wonderful opportunity made me want to help these others. For I knew that nations, like individuals, were suffering in the grip of the old-age spirit-that effort of fear to strangle growth and progress. If only mankind might learn that the value of a nation depends upon theusefulnessof all of its men and women, upon the youth-spirit, which is courageous, venturesome, and optimistic enough to make the whole human race one great world-family.
Off in the distance the old mission bell began to ring. It was sending out its mediæval understanding of the Christmas message, which the Voice spoke to the Shepherds of old. But we, in our Youthland Colony, have learned that the Voice, all down through the years, has been trying to make man understand that he must follow the guiding star and find the tidings of great joy in the birth ofhis own creative self-the God Powerwithin his own being. When a man gains this interpretation of the Voice’s message he becomes an influence for growth and progress in the Great Life-Adventure-
HE FINDS YOUTH!
Transcriber’s Notespg 13 Added period after: printing-office to another