away, with all the other
oldtime myths, into the forsaken wonderland of the past? Of all the
personages whose marvelous doings once filled the minds of men, he alone
survives. He has outlived all the great gods, and all the impressive and
poetic conceptions which once flitted between heaven and earth; these
have gone, but Santa Claus remains by virtue of a common understanding
that childhood shall not be despoiled of one of its most cherished
beliefs, either by the mythologist, with his sun myth theory, or the
scientist, with his heartless diatribe against superstition. There is a
good deal more to be said on this subject, if this were the place to say
it; even superstition has its uses, and sometimes, its sound heart of
truth. He who does not see in the legend of Santa Claus a beautiful
faith on one side, and the naive embodiment of a divine fact on the
other, is not fit to have a place at the Christmas board. For him there
should be neither carol, nor holly, nor mistletoe; they only shall keep
the feast to whom all these things are but the outward and visible signs
of an inward and spiritual grace.

Rosalind and myself are thoroughly orthodox when it comes to the keeping
of holidays; here at least the ways of our fathers are our ways also.
Orthodoxy generally consists in retaining and emphasizing the
disagreeable ways of the fathers, and as we are both inclined to
heterodoxy on these points, we make the more prominent our observance of
the best of the old-time habits. I might preach a pleasant little sermon
just here, taking as my text the "survival of the fittest," and
illustrating the truth from our own domestic ritual; but the season
preaches its own sermon, and I should only follow the example of some
ministers and get between the text and my congregation if I made the
attempt. For weeks we have all been looking forward to this eventful
evening, and the still more eventful morrow. There have been hurried and
whispered conferences hastily suspended at the sound of a familiar step
on the stair; packages of every imaginable size and shape have been
surreptitiously introduced into the house, and have immediately
disappeared in all manner of out-of-the-way places; and for several
weeks past one room has been constantly under lock and key, visited only
when certain sharp-sighted eyes were occupied in other directions.
Through all this scene of mystery Rosalind has moved sedately and with
sealed lips, the common confidan