n the table were huge platters of
smoking meats, and serving men brought in flagons and tankards of ale, and
feasting, stories and minstrelsy held the hours till the midnight bell
called to the first mass and ushered in Christmas Day. Caedmon, coming
back from the frosty chapel, saw the stars shining in the brilliance of
winter skies. His heart was suffused with all he had heard the pilgrims
repeat; for the first time it entered his mind that the same stars that he
saw twinkling, held their course at that glad time when "the morning-stars
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy,"--a prelude to
this other song of "the great multitude of the heavenly host." He entered
the hall, and when the company reassembled, he took his harp, and sang
with power and pathos of the slumbering flocks on Judea's upland pastures;
the faithful, watching shepherds; the loneliness and silence of the night;
the sudden, startling brightness that shone about them, and enveloped
their angel visitant, who kindly soothed their alarm with "Fear not;" and
the outburst of angelic song, unheard by the ears dulled with sleep, but
overpowering these astonished men. "O happy shepherds! who alone among
men, were ever privileged to hear the songs of heaven."

His audience was thrilled. Never had the monks heard Caedmon, or any other
minstrel, sing with such fire; the intervening centuries fled before his
song. They, too, went to the lowly manger, and saw the Divine Infant
hushed on the happy breast of his young Mother and felt Mary's awe when
the shepherds told her what they that night had seen and heard. While
Caedmon sang they saw the caravan winding over an unmarked way and the
wise men of the Orient following ever the strange star, till, after weeks
of travel, it stood over the place where the young Child lay. They saw,
too, the aged, bearded Melchior, Gaspar, young and fresh, and Balthazar
the Moor, descend from their kneeling camels with their kingly offerings
of gold, frankincense and myrrh and prostrate themselves in reverence
before the Holy Babe.

"'Twas ages, ages long ago," and Caedmon and his hymns are nigh forgotten,
but with each returning Christmas-tide may be heard again, as Caedmon
heard of yore, the angels' song of joy: "Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will toward men."

GOOD KING WENCESLAS

JOHN MASON NEALE

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round a