and our colored cook told me that she awoke in the night and, peeping
into the kitchen, actually saw the veritable old visitor light a candle
and sit down at the table and write it! I believed it all as implicitly
as I believed the Ten Commandments, or the story of David and Goliath.
Happy days of childish credulity, when fact and fiction were swallowed
alike without a misgiving! During my long life I have seen many a
day-dream and many an air-castle go the way of Santa Claus and the
wonderful "Lamp of Aladdin."

In after years, when I became a parent, my beloved wife and I,
determined to make the Christmastide one of the golden days of the
twelve months. In mid-winter, when all outside vegetation was bleak and
bare, the Christmas-tree in our parlor bloomed in many-colored beauty
and bounty. When the tiny candles were all lighted the children and our
domestics gathered round it and one of the youngsters rehearsed some
pretty juvenile effusion; as "they that had found great spoil." After
the happy harvesting of the magic tree in my own home, it was my custom
to spend the afternoon or evening in some mission-school and to watch
the sparkling eyes of several hundreds of children while a huge
Christmas-tree shed down its bounties. Fifty years ago, when the
degradation and miseries of the "Five-Points" were first invaded by
pioneer philanthropy, it was a thrilling sight to behold the denizens of
the slums and their children as they flocked into Mr. Pease's new "House
of Industry" and the "Brewery Mission" building. The angelic host over
the hills of Bethlehem did not make a more welcome revelation to them
"who had sat in darkness and the shadow of death." In these days the
squalid regions of our great cities are being explored and improved by
various methods of systematic beneficence. "Christian Settlements" are
established; Bureaus of Charity are formed and Associations for the
relief of the poor are organized. A noble work; but, after all, the most
effective "bureau" is one that, in a water-proof and a stout pair of
shoes, sallies off on a wintry night to some abode of poverty with not
only supplies for suffering bodies, but kind words of sympathy for
lonesome hearts. A dollar from a warm hand with a warm word is worth two
dollars sent by mail or by a messenger-boy. The secret of power in doing
good is _personal contact_. Our incarnate "Elder Brother" went in person
to the sick chamber. He anointed with His own hand the e