Tuapeka Times AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1882. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

There is of late a tendency to convert Christmas into a "bridge of sighs between the past and present In spite of story-writers, pictures, periodi cals, colored-cards in showers, artistip greetings by the gross, and postal com pliments, by the bale, many people will tell you of late that the great festival when it comes round seems to bring more sadness than joy with it. To some, »ye are sorry to say, it must be so. Whatthe "whirligig of Time "brings round, .will necessarily be chequered. Besides, folks as they grow older have not the same feelings and tastes as when, they were young. "We cannot eat our cake and have it," and how many of us have eaten our cake ! We cannot dance and sing as in the days gone by, but we may "rest, and be thankful," and there is a subdued pleasure in looking back as there is a lively one in looking forward.' This has undoubtedly been the experience of all the generations that from the foun dation of the great Christian festival have celebrated it. Christmas is not more exempt from its share of ills than the' other seasons j but what gives its ills at this time a touch of melancholy is their contrast with the occasion. The present one is. .possibly not exempt from- individual troubles and calamity, but practical sympathy is all that most of us dan ' show for the sufferers ; and there are always congratulations forth coming to balance condolence. It is well it is so, as the business of the world goes on too briskly to' give placp to vain regrets.- The current of time rolls on, bearing events upon its bosom as a great river does the fallen leaves from the trees which line/its banks] still though it carries away much that we grieve to lose, it carries away still more that we rejoice to get rid of.' Many of the old Christmas customs are lost to us, but so have also disappeared much of the old want and waste and ignorance .contemporaneous with those customs. 