E 
 
 Christmas /Iftessage 
 
 TO OUR 
 
 SolMers & Sailors 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1914 
 BY THE 
 
 BISHOP OF WINCHESTER 
 
 London : 
 
 SIDGWICK. & JACKSON LTD. 
 3, Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C. 
 
GARDEN C1TT PRESS LTD. 
 LITCH WORTH. 
 
a Cbrtetmas flDessage 
 
 "Rejoice . . . again I will say, Rejoice !" 
 
 — Philippians, iv. 4. 
 
 A good text for Christmas that ! 
 
 " Nay ! but not for this Christmas," 
 someone says ; " no joy this Christmas ! 
 And if you were over here you would know 
 that and no mistake." 
 
 Over here ! For this small letter or 
 sermon of mine is to be sent, I understand, 
 to you on the front, either in the field, in 
 the trenches, and the dug-outs, or tossing 
 and waiting afloat. 
 
 Well, it looks like that ! Such a Christ- 
 mas as we have none of us seen the like of 
 
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before : plenty of sorrow and trouble : 
 no joy. 
 
 Christmas has been till now our jolly 
 time : children coming home — friends 
 calling in — the Christmas dinner or the 
 Christmas dance — the Christmas tree for 
 the children (by the by, it was from the 
 Germans that we learnt that, and other 
 pretty customs : the Germans, too, love 
 Christmas :) — the curtains drawn — the 
 cosy warmth — the merry game. 
 
 And now — this Christmas ? How will 
 it be ? 
 
 When I wrote this it was a month and 
 more before Christmas. How can I tell 
 how it will be with you abroad, or with 
 us at home, when Christmas comes ? 
 
 One thing we have been learning is to 
 
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know how little we can trust to-morrow. 
 " Thou knowest not what will be on the 
 morrow " — still less in a month. 
 
 Where will you be ? In France or 
 Belgium ? or beyond ? conquering or de- 
 feated ? on the North Sea, still waiting and 
 watching, or after some terrific clash of 
 fleets ? And we — shall we be having the 
 enemy here, or expecting him ? — or will 
 you have rolled his hosts and his ships away 
 from us ? 
 
 However, it is pretty sure that when 
 Christmas comes we shall be apart, not 
 together : there will be a cloud of sorrow 
 hanging over us — homes out of which there 
 has been one, perhaps more than one, called 
 to die : parents, wives, sweethearts, for 
 whom the light of love and joy has gone out 
 
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of life : comrades parted, perhaps for ever 
 on earth. How well we know it all ! 
 England, Britain, the Empire, Ireland 
 " mourning for their children, and will not 
 be comforted for their children, because 
 they are not." 
 
 It does look, then, like a bad text — 
 " Rejoice ! again I will say, Rejoice"? 
 
 Yet we want to send you a bright word 
 for Christmas. — Can we do it ? 
 
 Think with me. 
 
 The name of Christmas speaks to us ot 
 two things— Good Cheer and Good- 
 will. Some of us perhaps have thought 
 in past years more of the good cheer than 
 •f the good-will. But we have always 
 thought of both. This year Good Cheer 
 will be very much at a discount for you, 
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and I don't think we shall care much for 
 it at home. 
 
 Perhaps our kind young Princess Mary 
 or someone else will have got out to you 
 a bit of pudding, or a packet of cigarettes, 
 or what not ? And you will take what 
 cheer you can. Still, not much "good 
 cheer." 
 
 But Good-will ! Ah, that's a different 
 story. Has there ever been a Christmas 
 with so much Good-will ? Why, the 
 whole nation is alive with good-will — 
 throbbing with it ! You can't find a 
 town, a vi lage, a palace, a cottage, where 
 they are not at it, trying to show good- 
 will because it glows in them. If there is 
 one who hasn't found what to do, he or 
 she " won't be happy till they get it " — 
 
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something for our brave so diers and 
 sailors (and airmen : we don't forget them, 
 though the name doesn't run over our 
 lips so easily yet) : or something for the 
 wives left at home : or something for the 
 wounded or convalescent : or something 
 for the poor fellows roughing it in the 
 Training Camps, something like Recrea- 
 tion Huts, entertainments, or some help 
 with hymns or camp-services : something 
 for these poor Belgians, the people en- 
 nobled by their awful sufferings : or even 
 something for the poor prisoners of the 
 enemy. 
 
 And where one can't do anything, there 
 is good-will in our hearts, and in yours : 
 good-will for our brave Allies, French, 
 Belgian, and Russian. I know you have 
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had a hundred instances of the good-will 
 of the foreigners, now friends, in the vil- 
 lages which you have passed through : 
 and you have shown to them good-will, 
 and rejoiced (we have got back to the text) 
 with the sheer pleasure of friendliness and 
 human feeling. 
 
 Yes J and is there not a corner in our 
 
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 hearts for good-will towards those poor 
 Germans (however badly they have been 
 taught to hate us !), sent up in droves, so 
 patient and brave, to face the fire and die ? 
 Ah ! there are the sad German firesides, 
 and the sad German hearts, too, this 
 Christmas — hundreds of thousands of 
 them, and the Germans, like ourselves, are 
 such home-loving folk ! 
 
 Have you read, as I have, in the news- 
 
paper that glorious deed of a British officer, 
 who at the sight of a German agonizing 
 between their lines and ours, gave his own 
 men the " Cease fire " signal, and then 
 plunged into the German firing which 
 continued till they understood what he was 
 about, carried the wounded man into the 
 German lines, was received with their 
 cheers, and came back to be recommended 
 for the Victoria Cross — and to die ? 
 
 So it is that out of all the horror and fury 
 God brings not only such single deeds, but 
 this great burst of Good-will in our own 
 midst. "Rejoice, again I will say, Rejoice ! " 
 
 And rejoice the more because this 
 hideous war is the biggest lesson earth has 
 ever received of what ill-will does. A 
 gigantic harvest from seeds of ill-will — 
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from hatred, suspicion, envy, revenge- 
 fulness. This is what ill-will comes to, 
 "writ large" among nations. This is 
 what it breeds, " writ small " everywhere 
 among men and women. It ought to be 
 utterly discredited after this. 
 
 Rejoice, then, in the Good-will. 
 
 May I go on ? for there is more to say 
 — and better yet. This good-will — whence 
 has it come among men ? and how has it 
 come ? 
 
 Christ-mas gives answer. It came, from 
 God, through Christ. Good-will of 
 man to man, because of the great Good- 
 will of God to all. The Eternal Love 
 of God — His good-will — it was always 
 there, watching over man, preparing the 
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earth for his dwelling, decking it with 
 beauty for furniture, giving man his won- 
 derful body with its muscles, nerves and 
 brain — and (better yet) fitting him out 
 with gifts for goodness and love, prompting 
 him to use them. 
 
 It was always there — this Good-will ot 
 God ; and good men partly knew it, and 
 rejoiced. 
 
 Yet it was unseen ; and men forgot it ; 
 and the world hid it behind a screen of war 
 and wickedness, of cruelty and selfishness 
 and all human ill. 
 
 But Good-will could not be satisfied so. 
 God had His plan and His Gift. 
 
 What was it ? Christmas answers — it 
 was the Child. " Unto us a Child is 
 born " — like all other children, yet unlike 
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them : the One that, growing to be a 
 perfect man, will remain the perfect child, 
 the Only Son of God. 
 
 He was proof of God's love and agent or 
 God's love : and through Him God's love 
 flowed out into all the streams of human 
 love and good-will, and flows yet. 
 
 " Rejoice, again I will say, Rejoice ! " 
 
 Yes, but can we ? In the face of all 
 that is round us this Christmas, death and 
 destruction, fury and ill-will — a world in 
 rage — Christ forgotten — might defying 
 right : can we rejoice ? can we believe in 
 the love of God ? 
 
 Has the thought ever come to you, at 
 some Christmas time, as you thought of 
 Bethlehem, and looked on the young 
 Mother's tender child, that in a few years 
 
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that same body with its unstained life would 
 be torn, pierced, stripped, tortured, gibbeted, 
 and only left to friends when, drained ot 
 life, it must be buried ? 
 
 Christmas was beautiful at Bethlehem — 
 but it came to a bad end before long on 
 Calvary, in the world and the devil's cruel 
 triumph. No "rejoicing" there. 
 
 Yet was it so ? " was that the end, was 
 that the end ? " 
 
 What means then this Cross every- 
 where, tvro thousand years later — a gal- 
 lows turned to glory — the Red Cross ot 
 Mercy — the White Cross of Purity ? 
 
 How is it that this Jesus, not of Bethle- 
 hem, but of the Cross, has a "Name above 
 every name " in history ? How is it that 
 He is worshipped and loved by millions ot 
 
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every colour and race ? What does it 
 mean ? 
 
 Just this — that God's Good-will is 
 stronger than man's ill-will. " The fierce- 
 ness of man shall turn to Thy praise." 
 What began at Bethlehem goes on to-day : 
 it broadens out, it is stronger than War, 
 than Dreadnoughts or Howitzers : it turns 
 even the darkness of our pains and sorrows 
 to light : the last enemy that it destroys is 
 death, for Jesus died but Jesus lives, and 
 he that liveth and believeth in Jesus shall 
 not die, but live with Him. 
 
 Life masters death. However long the 
 big campaign of God may be, Love shall 
 win at last. All the patience, and the 
 sorrow, and the pain will be gathered up 
 by it, for those who trust. 
 
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So Christmas tells us : " Rejoice — again 
 I will say, Rejoice ! " I dare to say it to 
 you, and to myself. 
 
 Good-bye and God bless you. 
 
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