At first glance this may seem tQ be a

At first glance this may seem tQ be a rhetorical question, a foolish question, or a very innocent one. It is not a rhetorical question, for we do not know the answer. We do not ask it foolishly but in measured concern. Unlike Virginia’s famous Santa Claus letter to the New York Sun, it has no Innocence. The answer to that question in is grave doubt.

Christmas, with all it stands for, is our most hallowed western heritage. For centuries it has united all civilized nations and peoples. It has shaped their ideals. It has symbolized their commonality, their oneness in diversity. It has linked their destinies more closely than literature or language. Even between countries at war Christmas has remained a bond of spiritual fellowship when all other bonds were severed.

The idealism of the west, fostered by the feast of Christmas, birth of the Prince of Peace, put a curb on the cruelties of combat, tempered treaties and acknowledged all men as children of one Father.

Now our civilization is threatened, truly for the first time, by a ruthless, robot creed. World communism, monstrous, powerful, militant in its growing immensity, makes all its adherents alien, animal, and unreasoning; with souls blank of compassion—faceless men taught to hate and to conquer.

Thfere^s^aosapromise with communism., Should it vanish,and in* generation be forgotten:_or. worae still, our slave children will commemorate it as a day of spurious brotherhood under a red flag.

As we celebrate this Christmas, let it be a day of dedication to the tasks before us. Let us face them bravely. Let us welcome each sacrifice, conscious that we in our time are not a rear guard fighting a lost fight but the vanguard of millions yet to dome and that we battle for our beliefs in the knowledge that they make all men free.