’^ace Two THE PILOT—Soulhern Pines. North Carolina Friday, December 19, 1952 THE PILOT ^ Published Each Friday by THE PIbOT. INCORPORATjED Soulhern Pines, North Carolina 1941—JAMES BOYD. Publisher—1944 XATILARINE BOYD Editw /ALERIE NICHOLSON Asst. Editor OAN S. RAY General Manager C. G. COUNCIL Advertising Subscription Rates: One Year $4.00 6 Months $2.00 3 Months $1.00 Entered at the Postoffice at Southern Pines, N. C.. as second class mail matter ___ Member National Editorial Association and N. C. Press Association ‘In taking over The Pilot no changes are con templated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all con cerned. Where there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike.” —James Boyd, May 23, 1941. Christmas Again Merry Christmais to all! The old words, sending good wishes to friends near and lar, and especially, today, to all Pilot leaders, carries the same thought: warm thanks, always, for your friendship: may happiness be yours, may good come to you at this Christmas- tide! Christmias is a celebration that has grown to include the customs of many lands. Even pagan festivals, from ancient times add their touch of gavety and beauty to tne day. The whole com bines in our Christmas, the time of reunion with family and friends to which most of us look as the brightest time of the whol§ year. As the pattern of Christmas opens up, as the tapestry, with all its interweaving threads, un folds, how strange and wonderful it is to see how the Bible story shines through, giving to each detail, to every beauty, its inner significance We draw together, at Christmas, as they were drawn to the stable in Bethlehem, the wise men and the shepherds, rich and poor. We give our gifts, at Christmas, as they gave them, to the Baby in the, straw. At Christmas our hearts go out to those less fortunate, in memory of the stark simplicity of the straw-laid manger, the quiet animals, the family sheltering from the indifference of a busy innkeeper. The holly with which we deck our halls has berries, “red as any blood,” sing the carols, and the white ber- r .es of the Druid mistletoe are white with the innocence of a little baby. On the very tops of our Christmas trees, we niace a stai and as we sing the songs of Christ mas and see the little tinsel star shining high, a surge of a sure strong hope fills many a heart, as it did that night in Bethlehem. We sing, as the angel chorus sang, of peace, good will to- ■'■/ards men, and once again the magic hap pens and we know that some day the promise will be fulfilled. * Welcome Gifts Southern Pines has had two Christmas gifts pep out of the stocking: a bus station and a. new fast streamliner train added tp its transporta tion faciliies. Both come through the interested work of some of our citizens and both are very v/elcom.e, ^ The Silver Comet, that is to stop here on its trio down from New York, will add greatly to the traveler’s convenience. It should make things a lot easier for business people, and those who crave to get down for their good night’s sleep under the pines instead of spending it on the Pullman will take advantage of this way of attaining that, to many, blissful end. Since the Diesels banished the lovely, long, mournful whoo-ooing through the night one of the joys of train-riding has gone. They say the clickety- clack of the rail points will soon be a thing of the past, too, and then there will be no tempta tion at all towards a night ride. The Silver Comet’s day run will surely be welcomed by many, and it is good news that it will no longer flash through town, in disdainful splendor be fore the longing eyes of our people, but will, at least once a day. Stop politely for our con venience. As we welcome this addition to our transpor tation facilities, we suggest this is a good mo ment for the people of this town to voice their • gratitude to the Seaboard Railroad for this last cf their many considerate actions toward our town. The road has been, we feel, extremely thoughtful of Southern Pines and the Sandhills. First they put up the signals at the crossings, apparently waiving the fact that we, on our part, have never fulfilled our end of the bargain; next they put in the handsome and efficient overhead signal, in order that our fine shrub bery along the track might be spared. And now, in answer to many pleas, they have agreed to stop the streamliner. It should be noted that the road has been most reluctant to do this, for they do not feel that it can be an economically practi cal operation because pf the high cost of stop ping and starting the Silver Comet on this, the highest grade on the whole line. In agreeing to dr it, the SAL is doing us a very real favor. The Pilot is glad to voice the thanks of our towns people in return. As for the bus station, this is a really big Christmas present for the town. The need for it has long been critical. Whether or not it can be a paying project remains problematical, and those who are attempting to fill this need are making the experiment as a public service. They deserve ouil gratitude and support. So we relish with pride and give thanks for those two Christmas gifts. They are the pack ages popping out of the top of the stocking. As we dig further down we find Knollwood Lake, the lovely Garden Club planting, the purchase of the community center, the Bishop plant: those Finer Carolina welcome additions to our town. ]Vo, 35 — Do You Know Your Old Southern Pines? THE MAGNIFICAT My soul doth magnify the Lord. The Magnificat is the second of the three can- tides that are associated with the festival of Christmas and have long been a part of the liturgy of the Christian church. In the Benedic- tus, as Zechariah, the aged priest and father of John the Baptist, sang it to celebrate his son’s birth, he was uttering the ageless dream that forms in the paternal heart. . . The mother of Jesus sang her canticle before the father of John sang his. Zechariah was in tire sanctuary busy with the temple ritual; Mary war at home in a then'undistinguished town in Galilee. Both of them sang, though Mary’s only listener was her startled cousin Elizabeth, much older than she; while Zechariah’s words were chanted in the presence of worshippers who at tended the first presentation of John at the altar. We observe also that the burden of Zechar riah’s' song was projected into the future. He was reciting inspired promises about his late- bern son. The arfival of a long-hoped-for heir lifted him to the visualization of long-hoped-for conditions among his people, conditions that his son was to bring about. Mary’s song on the con trary, was a statement of accomplished fact. At first she appropriated the announcement of coming motherhood as a blessing to herself. Her lowly condition is, from this time forward, to be elevated by the acclaim of all generations that stall call her blessed. She, of all earth’s women, has been selected for the mightiest act of Him “that is great,” and in this personal ex perience she finds reassurance that God’s lov ingkindness is from generation to generation to all that fear Him. But it is not a personal appropriation only, extended in her happiness to others who share her pious devotion to God; she makes clear that she is aware of a meaning for all mankind in her private happiness. Her soul magnifies the Lord because He has already “scattered those who were haughty in the thoughts of their hearts” (Weymouth translation). This is the h imbling of the earth’s proud. “He has cast monarchs down from their thrones.” This is the disestablishment of the earth’s powerful. “The rich he hath sent empty away.” This is the dfepcssession of the earth’s rich. 'To these acts against the aristocracies of the world’s wisdom, power, and riches, she adds the benefits He has Tower on their hands. And Editor Hyde comes forth with the neat retort—“Dear Rev erend: We wer^ not slanting the news. We were new sing the slant.” He set us right, too, on another matter, for which we thank him. We said Mrs. W. A. Wa.y was the third womain to be awarded the Kiwanis Builders Cup. She is the fourth. Others have been Mrs. T. A. Cheatham of Pinehurst and Miss Birdilia Bair and Mrs. Audrey K. Keimedy of Southern Pines. Social Note: Mr .Smokey Gordon- Mann has as his guests his nieces Misses Sniffles and Kaiinka Dev ins. who will remain through the Christmas and New Year holiday season. Every time we have run one of these old pic tures showing a crowd, somebody has popped up who was there, and can tell us about it. The figures in this ancient fish fry, or barbecue, or whatever, are small and we can’t recognize a soul—nor do we recognize just which section of local pine woods was the scene. We hope, however, somebody in the picture will remember all about it, and let us know. Grains of Sand ■Luke 1:46 history of the human struggle has been, more often than not perhaps, attended by excess and iiorror. And yet revolution has quite as often— though less obviously—been the result of the birth of a baby. Somewhere in the world there may be born today a child upon whom will turn the destiny of the race. Mary sang to her soli tary listener that exactly that had taken place. The promise of the child she had conceived was the realization of an overturning in human des tiny. There is no point in recalling how civilization turned a corner with the birth of Christ. That the straight line marked out by this -revolution ary episode has not always been followed, and that it is necessary again and again for revolu tions to occur to keep us in the way of Christ, subtracts nothing from the actual truth of M.ary’s daring claim. History is the record of the turning and overturning of man’s pride, power £nd affluence, and the rise of the dispossessed and impoverished who in their turn grow proud and strong and rich and, in their turn, also are cast down. This is no effort to discover a philosophy of history in the Magnificat of the expectant moth er in Nazareth. It is simply to observe that she sang more wisely than she knew; and to point out that what we see going on in our times is the thing she saw going on in hers. What is the end of it? This we do not know; but it may be interest ing to point out, the way in which the Benedic- tus of Zechariah and the Magnificat of Mary