What the patriarch Job did early in the morning after the family festivities, you would do well to do for yourself before you rest tonight. Amid the cheerfulness of household gatherings, it's so easy to slide into sinful levity and forget our avowed character as Christians. It ought not to be so, but so it is—our days of feasting are rarely days of sanctified enjoyment. Too frequently they degenerate into unhallowed mirth.

There is a way of joy as pure and sanctifying as bathing in the rivers of Eden! Holy gratitude should be quite as purifying as grief. Alas! for our poor hearts, that facts prove the house of mourning is better than the house of feasting.

Come, believer, in what have you sinned today? Have you been forgetful of your high calling? Have you been even as others in idle words and loose speeches? Then confess the sin, and fly to the sacrifice! The sacrifice sanctifies. The precious blood of the Lamb slain removes the guilt and purges away the defilement of our sins of ignorance and carelessness.

This is the best ending of a Christmas Day—to wash anew in the cleansing fountain. Believer, come to this sacrifice continually; if it be so good tonight, it is good every night. To live at the altar is the privilege of the royal priesthood. To them sin, great as it is, is nevertheless no cause for despair, since they draw near yet again to the sin-atoning victim, and their conscience is purged from dead works.

Gladly I close this festive day, Grasping the altar's hallowed horn; My slips and faults are washed away, The Lamb has all my trespass borne.