The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1971, Page 13

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
11
world will long remember with rever-
ence and gratitude.
Shepherds long ago heard the first
Christmas message as they watched
over their sheep one winter’s night
under the star-lit sky of a far Eastern
country. They were huddled together
for warmth, for even in a Mediter-
ranean country the nights can get cold.
They were unhappy. What had they
to be happy about during their long,
lonely vigil? A proud, haughty nation
ruled over their land, a people that
did not understand them, and despised
the customs and religion of their
fathers. In nearby Bethlehem people
from the far corners of the country
were gathering together to pay tribute
to a far-off, tyrannical, hated Caesar.
Winding over the distant hills roads
could be discerned in the moonlight.
They knew that these roads were
bandit-infested, and death lurked in
the shadows. Far away, dimly outlined
against the sky-line could be seen the
holy city of Jerusalem. There money-
changers daily desecrated the Temple
of Solomon. There were rumors of
wars, cold and hot. Life seemed to
them to be like “a tale told by the
idiot, full of sound and fury, signify-
ing nothing”.
them to be like “a tale told by an
“Then suddenly there appeared be-
fore them a heavenly host singing,
‘Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good-will towards men’ ”.
Instantly their hearts became trans-
fused with a transcendent joy. They
caught the vision of the world, and
the wonders that would be. In place
of strife and war, peace, and instead
of enmity and hatred, good-will.
This was the message heard long
ago on the Judean hills, and trans-
mitted across the years to a distant
land where the lights of Blaine and the
church bells at White Rock are a re-
minder that a confused, strife-worn
world, for a day at least, seems to
understand it. One day, hopefully, that
first Christmas message will dispel this
winter of malevolence and destruc-
tion, bringing in its wake the spring-
time of the brotherhood of Man and
creative activity. Thus will Virgil’s
dire portent and “majestic sadness”
at humankind’s “doubtful doom” be
exorcized.
—Axel Vopnfjord
A MERIT CHRISTMAS
and a HAPPY MEW
YEAR
£r
Frdm the Icelandic Canadian td its Readers