-being such a
little child. But he went quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in
her hand she leads him.

There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath a
burning sun, and said, "Tell them at home, with my last love, how much I
could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had
done my duty!" Or there was another, over whom they read the words,
"Therefore we commit his body to the dark!" and so consigned him to the
lonely ocean, and sailed on. Or there was another who lay down to his rest
in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O shall
they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time!

There was a dear girl--almost a woman--never to be one--who made a mourning
Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent
City. Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not be
heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness? O look upon her
now! O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her
happiness! The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she,
more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise forever!"

We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often
pictured the changes that were to come upon our lives, and merrily
imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came
to be old. His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him in
his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would his
love have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister,
brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your
cherished places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and
in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we
will shut out nothing!

The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a rosy
path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more
moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in
the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly diffused town, and
in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple,
remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in
grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town
and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there
are flaming l