actors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout
the ages and throughout the world.

Let us therefore on this Holy Natal Day, from which the whole world
dates its time, begin on our knees before that altar which is at once
manger, cross, throne. Let us join thereafter in holy cheer of praise
and prayer and exhortation and Christmas carol, and then let us go forth
with a Christmas spirit in our hearts resolved to communicate it to the
children of men, and not merely for the day but for the future. To make
the right use of these our privileges, this it is to save the world.

In this spirit, therefore, so far as poor, fallible human nature permits
him to realize it and exhibit it, the author wishes all his readers
which at present comprise his only flock--

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

[Illustration]

IT WAS THE SAME CHRISTMAS MORNING

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

_In Which it is Shown how Different the Same Things may Be_

_A Story for Girls_

In Philadelphia the rich and the poor live cheek by jowl--or rather,
back to back. Between the streets of the rich and parallel to them, run
the alleys of the poor. The rich man's garage jostles elbows with the
poor man's dwelling.

In a big house fronting on one of the most fashionable streets lived a
little girl named Ethel. Other people lived in the big house also, a
father, a mother, a butler, a French maid, and a host of other servants.
Back of the big house was the garage. Facing the garage on the other
side of the alley was a little, old one-story-and-a-half brick house.
In this house dwelt a little girl named Maggie. With her lived her
father who was a labourer; her mother, who took in washing; and half a
dozen brothers, four of whom worked at something or other, while the two
littlest went to school.

Ethel and Maggie never played together. Their acquaintance was simply a
bowing one--better perhaps, a smiling one. From one window in the big
playroom which was so far to one side of the house that Ethel could see
past the garage and get a glimpse of the window of the living-room in
Maggie's house, the two little girls at first stared at each other. One
day Maggie nodded and smiled, then Ethel, feeling very much frightened,
for she had been cautioned against playing with or noticing the children
in the alley, nodded and smiled back. Now neither of the children felt
happy unless they had held a pantomimic conversation