would not be busy in secret, there would be no making and buying and
hiding gifts, and there would be nothing waiting to be disclosed on
Christmas morning! The morning of this day would dawn gray and bleak
just like any other morning, and no red letter would distinguish it on
the calendar of the year. There would be no glad greetings with the
first streak of light, no rush for gifts and joyous surprises, no home
gatherings, no neighborhood festivities, no benefactions to the poor.
The tide of life would not on this day rise higher and run fuller and
take on richer colors and sparkle with brighter joy, but it would remain
at the old level and creep along in the same dull sluggish way.

Deeper losses would result from blotting this day from the calendar.
There would be no story to tell of that wondrous birth that took place
on the first Christmas morning and fixed the date from which all other
events are dated. To blot Christmas out of the world we would have to
blot nineteen Christian centuries from the history of the world; in
truth, we would have to go farther back and dig up the roots of Hebrew
history running through twenty centuries. We would have to go through
the world and destroy every church and Christian institution: nearly
every hospital would go down under this fell decree, and most of our
schools and colleges. Our Bibles would all have to be burned, and our
literature would be perforated and ripped to pieces. Furthermore, we
would need to pull out of human character and life all the strands of
purity and peace, of faith and love and hope, that have been woven into
the hearts and lives of men by the hand of Christ. We would have to stop
all our preaching and praying and hush every Christian hymn and song. We
would have no word of salvation from sin, no comfort in trouble, and no
hope as we look out into the beyond. The world would lose its Light and
be wrapped in night.