practical value to anybody. It is not the calendar, but the Spirit of
Man that regulates the recurrence of feasts and fasts. Spiritually,
Christmas Day recurs exactly seven times a week. When we have frankly
acknowledged this, and acted on this, we shall begin to realise the
Day's mystical and terrific beauty. For it is only every-day things
that reveal themselves to us in all their wonder and their splendour.
A man who happens one day to be knocked down by a motor-bus merely
utters a curse and instructs his solicitor, but a man who has been
knocked down by a motor-bus every day of the year will have begun to
feel that he is taking part in an august and soul-cleansing ritual.
He will await the diurnal stroke of fate with the same lowly and pious
joy as animated the Hindoos awaiting Juggernaut. His bruises will be
decorations, worn with the modest pride of the veteran. He will cry
aloud, in the words of the late W.E. Henley, "My head is bloody but
unbowed." He will add, "My ribs are broken but unbent."

I look for the time when we shall wish one another a Merry Christmas
every morning; when roast turkey and plum-pudding shall be the staple
of our daily dinner, and the holly shall never be taken down from the
walls, and everyone will always be kissing everyone else under the
mistletoe. And what is right as regards Christmas is right as regards
all other so-called anniversaries. The time will come when we shall
dance round the Maypole every morning before breakfast--a meal at
which hot-cross buns will be a standing dish--and shall make April
fools of one another every day before noon. The profound significance
of All Fool's Day--the glorious lesson that we are all fools--is
too apt at present to be lost. Nor is justice done to the sublime
symbolism of Shrove Tuesday--the day on which all sins are shriven.
Every day pancakes shall be eaten, either before or after the
plum-pudding. They shall be eaten slowly and sacramentally. They shall