To men in all parts of the world, men from Williamsport, and from every other community in the land, gifts which represent the beautiful desires of their loved ones back home, to give them wherever they are and whatever task in which war has assigned them, some bit of the joy of the Christmas season. The greatest gift that has gone out to these men far away from home, is the assurance is that they are loved and remembered.

It is an expression of hope — a hope which has deeper meaning than a mere wish for a good time on this one day in one year.

As we repeat the song the Angels sang over Bethlehem, “Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men,” we should not allow cynicism to remind us too sharply of the irony of this promise in the conditions in the world today.

What we should do is pray that out of the great sacrifice which our men and the men of other nations are called upon to make, out of the sorrow that has visited many homes and out of the dark clouds of war, may come a result which will destroy for all time, for all lands and for all generations the ironical contrast between the vision of eternal peace and the reality of the grief that men have brought upon themselves by their own failures.

Let us keep Christmas by pledging our utmost to achievement of the great promise.