others at Christmas. In Sweden, in country districts, the farmer places a sheaf of corn on a pole for the birds on Christmas morning, and his wife takes food out of her store for the poor. Hearts grow warm and tender as we think that this day was born the Saviour, born for us men and our salvation. We see in the light of our faith that life is measured not by its success and its possessions but by its love, and love is measured by its service. The hospitable mind is its own best blessing. The loving heart is its own true reward. The generous soul has unawares had an angel for a guest. We put away all malice and hard thought and unforgiving feeling, and as we show love in love's own ways we open the door to Christ. We give the Christ-Babe His cradle in our hearts, and afterwards He sets up His cross in our hearts, and in our hearts He plants His throne.

XIII

A SHALLOW OPTIMISM

When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and cried with a loud and bitter cry, and came even before the king's gate; for none might enter into the king's gate, clothed with sackcloth.-ESTHER iv. 1, 2.

SACKCLOTH was the coarse material from which the garments of the poor were made, woven of rough hair, mostly goats' or camels' hair. It was of dark colour, and came to be used by mourners, and in solemn religious ceremonies. It was symbolic of grief for a great calamity, or of penitence, an outward sign of sorrow or humiliation. There are constant references to sackcloth as the garb of grief. So common was this use that the word became metaphorical of mourning; though in our own later langauge it is chiefly used as a metaphor for penance, as when Spenser in the Faerie Queen describes Corceca, or Superstition,

And to augment her painful penance more,
Thrice every week in ashes she did sit,

And next her wrinkled skin rough sackcloth wore,

And thrice three times did fast from any bit.

In any case the word implies pain and grief. It is the visible sign of real sorrow. Here Mordecai is represented as assuming all the outward signs of distress, rent clothes, sackcloth, and ashes, in token of grief for the national calamity impending over the Jews. He came before the gate of the king's palace to attract the attention of Esther.

It is a characteristic touch that follows, explaining why he did not enter; "for none might enter into the king's gate clothed with sackcloth." The sackcloth of camels' hair suits the wilderness, and is out of place in a palace. "Behold they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses." It was in keeping with the oriental luxury of the Persian court that such a rule should hold that no one be permitted to remind the inmates of death and sorrow and all the ugly things suggested by sackcloth. To be gorgeously apparelled and live delicately does not prepossess men to face the uncomfortable facts of life. For peace of mind these had better be kept out of sight. Sackcloth offends taste, and interferes with pleasure. All the things it suggests can be forgotten meanwhile, if only it be prohibited.

It is a common trick, not confined to the Persian court, for men both in practice and in speculation to purchase peace by eliminating all the things that

would disturb peace. Where none may enter clothed with sackcloth, it is easy to have a scheme of things in which there is no place for sackcloth, and to assume that it does not exist. The common way of attaining comfort is to surround oneself with pleasant things and ignore everything unpleasant, to listen at ease to harmony and shut the ears to all discord, to look on what is beautiful and comely and shut the eyes to what is ugly and all that will not come sedately into our pleasant scheme. The trouble is that we cannot all issue an imperial decree which will prevent the sackcloth from getting access into the presence. We cannot rampart ourselves completely against fate. We need to shut our eyes very tightly sometimes, and harden our hearts very securely, if we would keep out all signs of the great human sorrow, and maintain our pleasant superficial peace.

In the early story of the Buddha it is related that he, the son of a king, was tenderly nurtured and carefully guarded, so that he should not even know that evil or sad things existed. He lived in palace. enclosures with everything fair and sweet, that his gentle heart might never know the pang of sympathy. When at last he asked that he might ride out and see the world beyond, the king made proclamation

not only that the sackcloth might not enter the palace, but that it might not even appear in the streets while the prince rode through. No noisome sight was to appear; all the sick and the frail and the aged were to remain within doors. The city was decked with flowers, and a joyous crowd filled the streets, bright-clad and laughing. He was to see and believe that life as it is was good and the world was fair and only fair. For one day at least there was to be no sackcloth anywhere in sight. All went well till by some mistake an old man, ragged, starving, palsied, tottered from his hovel. Pain, and wretchedness, and age, and poverty were too evident; and the mischief was done. The courtiers tried to hustle him out of the way back to his hovel. The prince returned to the palace with food for thought, and never again could think of life as he used to do. The happy palace gardens could not make him forget that sackcloth was in the streets. He was of too noble soul to make-believe that the world was as his happy gardens. He must find out the worst as well as the best, and take the sackcloth into his view of life. Resolutely he lifted the veil that blinded him, and went out to see the sorrow and pain and death which men suffer, and to know at first-hand all the agony of earth. Only the noble soul could have made