Christmas, 1915

What shall I say of this Christmas?

It will be long before we shall wish one another “A Merry Christmas” again!

Hardly shall one greet another so in the whole of Europe, for there will be empty chairs by the Christmas tables, and the memory of beloved faces seen no more as we gather around the Yule log, will make tens of thousands of hearts ache in every country in Europe.

And not only in Europe, but in India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. 

What can I say but to send the one greeting that is never out of place,
never out of season,
and that never grows old,—

GOD BLESS YOU!

James Allen

The Epoch

With which is incorporated "The Light of Reason"

Vol. 5. December, 1915 No. 12

In 1893 in South Wales James Allen met Lily Louisa Oram (Lily L. Allen) whom he wed in 1895.

In 1902 Allen began to publish his own spiritual magazine, The Light of Reason, later re-titled The Epoch.

Following his death in 1912, his wife continued publishing the magazine under the name The Epoch, until failing sight forced her to give it up. 

Lily Allen summarized her husband's literary mission in the preface to one of his posthumously published manuscripts, Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success saying:

"He never wrote theories, or for the sake of writing; but he wrote when he had a message, and it became a message only when he had lived it out in his own life, and knew that it was good. Thus he wrote facts, which he had proven by practice."[1]

[1]"James Allen: A Life in Brief" by Mitch Horowitz, from As a Man Thinketh: Keepsake Edition (Tarcher/Penguin 2009)