cycle of progressive change and adaptation?
That any true membership of this organic body can be formed or annulled by
mere human interference? That the lopping or burning of branches of the
tree, even the uprooting and burning of the tree itself, this year, next
year, nay, for hundreds of years, shall have power to annihilate or even
defer the ultimate organic result?

The soul of man is not outcast from this glory, this freedom, this safety
of law. We speak as if we might break it, evade it; we forget it; we deny
it: but it never forgets us, it never refuses us a morsel of our estate.
In spite of us, it protects our growth, makes sure of our development. In
spite of us, it takes us whithersoever we tend, and not whithersoever we
like; in spite of us, it sometimes saves what we have carelessly perilled,
and always destroys what we wilfully throw away.

A Simple Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner.

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