How and what did Saint Nicholas give? Well, he gave tactfully and opportunely and appropriately. There was the nobleman of Lucia whose three daughters were starving to death. Saint Nicholas gave them marriage portions, throwing purses of gold in at the window at night. When he was in Myra he gave to the poor people all the wheat that was in the ships in the harbour, promising the owners that when they arrived at the port for which they were bound their ships would still be full of wheat; and so it came about. To a drowned sailor and to children who had been killed by a cannibal he gave the gift of life. And to innocent men accused of treason and imprisoned he gave freedom. His first gift, you see, was money, his second life, his third freedom. And thus he set an example to all the world. Now, it may not be convenient for us to celebrate Christmas by throwing money through the windows of apartments wherein repose dowerless young women. Nor are life and freedom gifts for our bestowal. But it is at any rate possible for us to imitate Saint Nicholas’s manner of giving; to give tactfully, opportunely, and appropriately. There was nothing especially characteristic of his episcopal functions in the gifts that Saint Nicholas gave. Nor did he worry about whether or not they reflected his personality. Let us make Santa Claus resemble Saint Nicholas as closely as we can. This business of expressing one’s personality by one’s gifts has been carried to extraordinary lengths of late years. There are people who actually select for all their friends and relatives things that they themselves would like. If they consider themselves to be dainty--as all women do--they give dainty presents, disregarding the fact that the recipient may suffer acute physical pain at the mere thought of daintiness. They wish their beneficiaries to say on Christmas morning, “How characteristic of Mrs. Slipslop to give me this exquisite Dresden china chewing-gum holder,” instead of “How generous and discerning of Mrs. Slipslop to give me this pair of rubber boots or this jar of tobacco or this hypodermic syringe!” But what every child and every grown person wants to receive is a gift suited to his tastes and habits; it is a matter of indifference whether or not it expresses the personality of the giver. Perhaps it will in his eyes supply the giver with a new and charming personality. You have hitherto regarded Mr. Blinker, the notorious efficiency engineer, with disfavour. You have regarded him as a prosaic theorist, a curdled mass of statistics. On Christmas morning you find that he has presented you, not with an illuminated copy of “Rules for Eliminating Leisure,” or a set of household ledgers or an alarm clock, but with a cocktail set or a pool table or an angora kitten or some other inefficient object.