Christmas 1941 comes to a world where there is scant peace, where men search the skies for portents not of joy but of death, and where men of goodwill are, as were the simple Judean shepherds long ago, “sore afraid.”

Happily, there is no blackout of the Christmas star here—no shrieking sirens to interrupt joyful music of Christmastide, no bursting of bombs. Yet our rejoicing is not without an undertone of fear. All are hoping for the best, anticipating eventual triumph of right, but not without realization that the future is clouded.

The spirit of Christmas, however, does not die—not in any land, but among the adherents of any creed, not forever in the human heart.

When the spirit of Christmas is abroad the narrower boundaries of religion and race fall away. “Glory to God in the Highest!” sang the angel, “and on earth goodwill toward men” Ancient and profound, this emotion, is in every land, in every tongue, in every creed, the spirit of Christmas.

Although clouded by the hates of war, twisted and tortured by centuries of man’s efforts to accommodate the divine message to their own ideals, the song which the herald angels sang over Bethlehem remains the goal toward which enlightened human leadership has always striven. No darkness has ever been black enough to extinguish the wonderful light that was kindled that night long ago in a stable in Bethlehem.