d will!

Of all the gifts of Christmas, are you fain to win the best?
Lo! the Christ-child still is waiting Himself to be your guest;
No lot so high or lowly but He will take His part,
If you do but bid Him welcome to a clean and tender heart.
Are you sleeping, are you waking?
To the Manger haste away,
And you shall see a wond'rous sight
Amid the straw and hay.--
'Tis Love Himself Incarnate
As on this Christmas Day!

* * * * *

A SIMPLE BILL OF FARE FOR A CHRISTMAS DINNER

H.H.

All good recipe-books give bills of fare for different occasions, bills
of fare for grand dinners, bills of fare for little dinners; dinners to
cost so much per head; dinners "which can be easily prepared with one
servant," and so on. They give bills of fare for one week; bills of fare
for each day in a month, to avoid too great monotony in diet. There are
bills of fare for dyspeptics; bills of fare for consumptives; bills of
fare for fat people, and bills of fare for thin; and bills of fare for
hospitals, asylums, and prisons, as well as for gentlemen's houses. But
among them all, we never saw the one which we give below. It has never
been printed in any book; but it has been used in families. We are not
drawing on our imagination for its items. We have sat at such dinners;
we have helped prepare such dinners; we believe in such dinners; they
are within everybody's means. In fact, the most marvellous thing about
this bill of fare is that the dinner does not cost a cent. Ho! all ye
that are hungry and thirsty, and would like so cheap a Christmas dinner,
listen to this:

BILL OF FARE FOR A CHRISTMAS DINNER

_First Course_--Gladness.

This must be served hot. No two housekeepers make it alike; no fixed
rule can be given for it. It depends, like so many of the best things,
chiefly on memory; but, strangely enough, it depends quite as much on
proper forgetting as on proper remembering. Worries must be forgotten.
Troubles must be forgotten. Yes, even sorrow itself must be denied and
shut out. Perhaps this is not quite possible. Ah! we all have seen
Christmas days on which sorrow would not leave our hearts nor our
houses. But even sorrow can be compelled to look away from its sorrowing
for a festival hour which is so solemnly joyous at Christ's Birthday.
Memory can be filled full of other things to be remembered. No soul is
entirely des