I do not
know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear
the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas
anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile
with triumphant harmony.
It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of yore,
that this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the
religion of peace and love, has been made the season for
gathering together of family connections, and drawing closer
again those bands of kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures
and sorrows of the world are continually operating to cast loose;
of calling back the children of a family who have launched forth
in life and wandered widely asunder, once more to assemble about
the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of the affections, there
to grow young and loving again among the endearing mementos of
childhood.
There is something in the very season of the year that gives a
charm to the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a
great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of Nature.
Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny
landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere." The song of the
bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of
spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of
autumn, earth with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven
with it deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence,--all
fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the
luxury of mere sensation.
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