2009 November

Everybody wants to be successful. The desire to be successful is inherent and no mater who we are or where we come from, right inside of us, we are special and different. Everybody grows up feeling this way. The major problem with becoming successful is lack of believing or confidence.

However, to make a change in life you must believe and become confident about something. The first step in becoming successful is by identifying a course and pursing it confidently, inconsiderate of the stormy challenges.

In your own pursuit, life will give you what you will fight for and you must fight to take what rightfully belongs to you. Do not accept life the way it is, do not be average and ordinary, do not go with way things are. If you want to win and be successful, you have to start believing in you. Do not mind people’s negative perception of you; to be something different, something more challenging and will succeed. Do not think failure when you have not failed, that is the way losers think. Everybody would love to be successful, financially independent and have a successful business but mere imagination will not get you anywhere; step-out, show-up and fight for it.

Because your life does not depend on somebody else, put a demand on success and happiness. It is your right. Life will give you what you accept; you have the power to be successful. Believe you deserve a place in this world and determine to get it. Stop telling your self what you cannot do, start thinking about what you really want from life. Open your mind to possibilities, opportunities and practice dreaming. Make friends but selectively, do something meaningful and you will be successful.

I have come to believe that nothing just happens. God knows everything. He uses nothing to make something. He takes us through the process of refinement and finally lands us to his Will, which brings out that success within.

Abraham Lincoln was a champion who never stopped competing, even with a pattern f failure that would have left most of us divested. He just kept competing until he won; you are never an empty vessel until you make yourself one.

I thank God for His blessings which He gives to all in respective of size, color, race, and location, thus you have no reason not to be successful in life.

Chinedu Ezeh C.                                                                                                                              emailchineduezeh@yahoo.com

Inspirational

A CHRISTMAS WISH

For Everybody, Everywhere

MAY peace and goodwill, prosperity and plenty, joy and satisfaction abound in your homes and in your hearts this day and all days. May opportunities for good work be many, and may you avail yourselves of them all. May your sorrows be lightened, may your griefs be assuaged. May your souls be fitted for what they must endure; may your backs be strengthened for your burdens; may your responsibilities be met; may your obligations be discharged; may your duties be performed. May love abound more and more until the perfect day breaks in your lives. In short, every wish that would be helpful, uplifting, and comforting, I wish you at this hour and in all hours.

In the words of Tiny Tim.

“God Bless us every one!“

LOOKING INTO THE MANGER

A Christmas Meditation

Christmas morning, the

day we celebrate as the anniversary of the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in the obscure, little hill town of Bethlehem in the far-off Judæan land, over nineteen hundred years ago!

It is said:

“When beggars die, there are no comets seen: The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”

What is true of the passing of kings is perhaps more true of their coming; yet in this birth are singular contradictions. The Child was born a beggar. There lacks no touch which even imagination could supply to indicate the meanness of His earthly condition. Homeless, His mother, save for the stable of the public inn—and words can hardly describe any place more unsuited—was shelterless, unprotected, in that hour of travail pain.

I love to let my imagination dwell upon that scene. Sometimes I think wayfarers may have gathered in the tavern hard by and with music and play sought to while away the hours as travellers have from time immemorial. Perhaps in some pause in their merriment, a strange cry of anguish, borne by the night wind from the rude shelter without, may have stopped their revelry for a moment and one may have asked of another:

“What is that?”

The servant of the house who stood obsequious to promote their pleasure may have answered apologetically:

“It is the cry of a woman of the people in travail in the inn yard.”

I can fancy their indifference to the answer, or I can hear perhaps the rude jest, or the vulgar quip, with which such an announcement may have been received, as the play or the music went on again.

Oh, yes, the world in solemn stillness lay, doubtless, that winter night, but not the people in it. They pursued their several vocations as usual. They loved or they hated, they worked or they played, they hoped or they despaired, they dreamed or they achieved, just as they had done throughout the centuries, just as they have done since that day, just as they will do far into the future; although their little God came to them, as never He came before, in the stable in the Bethlehem hills that night.

And yet, had they but cast their eyes upward like the wise men—it is always your wise man who casts his eyes upward—they, too, might have seen the star that blazed overhead. It was placed so high above the earth that all men everywhere could see to which spot on the surface it pointed. Or, had they been devout men, they would have listened for heavenly voices—it is always your devout man who tries to hear other things than the babble of the Babel in which he lives—they, too, could have heard the angelic chorus like the shepherds in the fields and on the hillsides that frosty night.

For the heavens did blaze forth the birth of the Child. Not with the thunder of guns, not with the blare of trumpets, not with the beating of drums, not with the lighting of castle, village, and town, the kindling of beacons upon the far-flung hills, the cry of fast-riding messengers through the night, and the loud acclaim of thousands which greet the coming of an earthly king, was He welcomed; but by the still shining of a silent star and by the ineffable and transcendent voices of an Angel Choir.

How long did the Shepherds listen to that chorus? How long did it ring over the hills and far away? Whither went the Wise Men? Into what dim distance vanished the star?

“Where are the roses of yesterday? What has become of last year’s snow?”

And the residuum of it all was a little Baby held to a woman’s breast in a miserable hovel in the most forlorn and detested corner of the world. And yet to-day and at this hour, and at every hour during the twenty-four, men are looking into that chamber; men are bowing to that Child and His mother, and even that mother is at the feet of the Child.

From the snow peaks of the North land, “from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand,” and on and on through all the burning tropics to the companion ice of the other pole, the antarctic, and girdling the world from east to west as well, the adoration continues. It comes alike from the world’s noblest, from the world’s highest, from the world’s truest, from the world’s kindest, from the world’s poorest, from the world’s humblest, from the world’s best.

Do not even the soldiers in the trenches upon the far-flung battle lines pause to listen, look to see as for a moment dies away the cannonade? Do not even the sailors of war and trade peer across the tossing waters of the great deep, longing for a truce of God if only for an hour upon this winter morning?

Yes, they all look into the manger as they look upon the cross and if only for an instant this war reddened planet comes to “see and believe.” What keen vision saw in the Baby the Son of God and the Son of Man? What simple faith can see these things in Him now? “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass.”

That birth is known as the Incarnation. Ye know not “how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child.” Life itself is insusceptible of any definition which satisfies, but we know that we live, nevertheless. Science points out a common origin in protoplasmic cells and is quite unable to explain so common a fact as sex differentiation. I care not what methods of accounting for life you propose, you yet have to refer it to the Author of all life “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Why, therefore, should the Incarnation be thought incredible or impossible because it does not come within the limitations of our present understanding and it is not taught by our limited human experience. The sweet reasonableness of the Incarnation, this conception by Divine power, this birth from the Virgin mother, should appeal to all who think deeply on these subjects.

And yet perhaps the manner, place, and circumstance of this birth may awaken wonder. Possibly you would have the King come as other kings come, in pomp and circumstance, glory and majesty, with heralds preceding, music playing, blossoms strewn, and people cheering. Oh, no, that way did not seem the best way to the wisdom of God—a young girl, an old man, in the stable, no other tendance, no luxury, no comfort—poverty, humility, absolute.

Let us forget the Angel Chorus and the blazing star and go now even unto Bethlehem and look into the manger at that Child, while the uncomprehending cattle stare resentful perhaps at their displacement. The King comes as a Child, as weak, as helpless, as vocal of its pains as any other child. Not a Child of luxury, not a Child of consequence, not a Child of comfort, but a Child of poverty; and in the eyes of the blind world, if they had been privy to it, without the glorious vision of the good man, Joseph, a Child of shame! If the world had known that the Babe was not the Child of Joseph and Mary how it would have mocked. What laughter, what jeers, what contempt, what obloquy, what scorn would have been heaped upon the woman’s head! Why the world would heap them there now were it not that that portion of it which disbelieves in the Incarnation, says that Joseph was after all the father of the Child.

Nor shall we go down to Bethlehem alone. The poor, ignorant shepherds came to the cradle that night. They could understand. It did not seem strange to them that their God was poor, for they themselves were poor. I wonder how much the shepherds reflected. Theirs is a profession which gives rise to thought; they are much alone in the waste places with the gentlest of God’s creatures. Their paths lead by green pastures and still waters; they enjoy long, lonely hours for meditation. Did they say:

“Ah! God has come to us as a poor man, not because there is anything particularly noble or desirable in poverty, but because so many of us are so very poor, and because the most of us have been poor all the time, and because it is probable that most of us will be poor in the future!”

Many a poor man has looked up into the silent heavens and wondered sometimes whether God understood or cared about his wretched lot. Of course God always knew and cared, we cannot gainsay that, but in order to make men know that He knew and to make them believe that He cared, He let them see that He did not disdain to be a poor man and humble; that He sought His followers and supporters in the great majority. My God was a Carpenter! That is why He came to the stable; that is why He came to the manger. And that is why the poor come to Him.

And there came to that same cradle, a little while after, the Wise Men. They were professional wise men; they belonged to the learned, the cultured, the thoughtful class; but they were wise men as well in the sense in which we use wisdom to-day. That is, they looked beyond earthly conditions and saw Divinity where the casual glance does not see it. How many a seamed, rugged face, how many a burden-bent back, how many a faltering footstep, how many a knotted, calloused hand is perhaps more nearly in the image of God than the fairer face, the straighter figure, the softer palm!

The shepherds were not only poor, but they laboured in their poverty; they were working men and they worshipped Him, the Working Man. The wise men were not only wise, but they were rich. They brought the treasures of the earth from the ends thereof and laid them before the Babe and the mother. How fragrant the perfume of the frankincense and the myrrh, and how rich the lustre of the gold and silver in the mean surroundings of the hovel. They took no thought of their costly apparel, they had no fear of contamination from their surroundings, no question of relative degree entered their heads. As simply and as truly as the shepherds they worshipped the Christ. The rich and the poor met together there, and the Lord was the maker of them all.

Was that baby-hand the shaper of destiny? Was that working-hand the director of events? Even so. The Lord’s power is not less the Lord’s power though it be not exhibited in the stretched out arm of majesty.

Some of you who read this and many more who can not are poor, perhaps very poor, but you can stand beside that manger and look at that Baby’s face, you can reflect upon the Child, how He grew, what He said, what He did, until a cross casts its black shadow across your vision—the war is raising many crosses and many there be that walk the via dolorosa to them to-day. You shall be counted blessed if you can gaze at that cross until it is transformed by the glory of the resurrection. And in it all you can see your God—the poor man’s God!—the rich man’s God!—everybody’s God!

You can know that your God was poor, that He was humble, that He struggled under adverse conditions, that He laboured, that He was hungry, thirsty, tired, cold, that He was homeless, that He was denied many of the joys of human society and the solace of affection, that His best friends went back on Him, that everybody deserted Him, and that the whole world finally rose up and crushed Him down. That he suffered all things. Only a very great God could so endure. Only one who was truly God could so manifest Himself in pain.

You can understand how He can comprehend what your trouble is. Oh, yes, the poor and the bereaved have as great a right to look into that manger and see their God there as have the rich and the care free.

Now there is a kind of pernicious socialism which condemns riches as things unholy and exalts poverty as a thing acceptable to God. That Baby came as well to the rich as to the poor. Do not forget that. It is not generally understood, but it is true. He accepted gladly the hospitality, the alms, the gifts, priceless in value, of those who had great possessions and He loved them even as He loved those who had nothing. The rich and wise also have a right to look into that cradle to see their God, too. When we say He is the God of all classes we do not mean that He is only the God of the poor any more than we mean He is only the God of the rich.

He came to all the children of men and they can all stand by that cradle this morning and claim Him as their own; ask, receive, and share in His blessing. The light that shone in the darkness lighted impartially the world. Some of you are blessed with competences and some of the competences are greater than others. What of it? The poor man may serve God acceptably in his poverty and the rich man may serve God acceptably in his wealth. There is one God and though He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, even though He may lie lowly in a manger, yet the kingdom of Heaven is like a republic—it is a democracy in which all are equal, or if there be distinctions they are based on righteousness alone—saving only the distinctions Divine.

Now there is one other condition into which all men inevitably fall. Whether they be rich or whether they be poor, they are all bound to be sorrowful. Sooner or later, we are certain to be troubled. And that is more true today, doubtless, than in any other period in the long history of this old world.

These sorrowful ones can go unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle and claim the Child as their God. For every sorrow that has been yours, He experienced; every grief that you have bowed before, He was forced to struggle with. Very tender and compassionate is our Lord. I am quite sure that He notices your bowed head, that He puts His arms across your shoulders, that He whispers words of comfort into your ear, or that He gives you the silent sympathy of His presence, that He takes you by the hand; that whatever action most appeals to you and is best for you He takes if you wish Him to.

There are many people belonging to you or your family who are far away, whom you would fain have with you this Christmas morning. Many of them are fighting manfully in His cause, too. Do not forget that our Lord came to the family! that He made a family by coming. These far-off loved ones are doing what we are doing this morning. And there are some you love who are still farther away. The sound of their earthly voices is stilled, we may not clasp their hands, we cannot see them any more. They are gone from the world, but not from our hearts. If they are not here I think they are with Him. And we may be sure that it is very pleasant to them where He is. They are not unmindful of our human regrets and longings, but I think we ought not to be unmindful of their peaceful joy in His presence.

And so everybody has a right to come to that cradle, the poor, the humble, the hard workers, the toilers, the wise, the learned, the easy, the rich, the joyous, the sad, the sorrowful, the bereaved. They may all look into the manger and see their God.

He came to a family; He made a family. We are all in that family, the children of the selfsame Father, the sons of the selfsame God, the brethren of Him of the manger—German and French, English and Austrian, Italian and Bulgar, Russian and Turk! Ay, and above all and with all American and Belgian. Sirs, we be, not twelve, but many brethren! What does that mean?

There is one musical word with, I think, perhaps the ugliest meaning in the language. It is rancour. Let us do away with it, let us put it aside. If we are poor let us be brethren to the other poor, if we are rich let us be brethren to the other rich, if we are wise let us be brethren to the other wise, if we are foolish let us be brethren to the other foolish. Ah, that is not difficult; it is an easy task. But that is not enough. Brotherhood is broader, thank God! Let the poor be brethren to the rich and the rich to the poor, the wise to the ignorant, the misguided to the well-directed, the ignorant to the wise, the foolish to the discreet, the discreet to the foolish, the glad to the sorrowful, the sorrowful to the glad, the servants of the Lord to the sinners against Him!

“Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers, In the brave days of old.”

Let us make out of the old pagan ideals present-day realities in our hearts as we go even unto Bethlehem and look into the cradle of the King; realities in His own nobler and better words:

“Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in Me.”

Peace, goodwill toward men! Peace to men of goodwill! That is what the angels sang. But there is nothing on earth to prevent us from making it our human song as well. As we stand by the cradle of the Master and peer into the manger at that which every human being loves, a baby, our earthly differences of nationality, of rank, power, station, and influence—things that are but the guinea’s stamp upon the gold of character and personality—fade into insignificance and become as nothing. The little child in life notices none of these distinctions, he marks nothing of them. Let us come as little children before Him. We may be war-battered, sin-marked, toil-stained, care-burdened. Let us forget it all this Christmas morning.

It was a poor place, that manger—the poorest place on earth—but it was a place. It was somewhere. Let us give humanity even as little as a manger. Let us not take up the Christ Child as we see Him and throw Him out into the streets, or into no man’s land. That is what we do when we mock Him, when we deny Him, when we laugh Him to scorn. Let us not shut Him out of His home place in our souls. Let us not refuse to open when His hand knocks upon the door. That is what we do when we are indifferent to Him. Let us take him out of the manger cradle, each one of us, and enthrone Him in the most precious place we have, our inmost hearts.

It all happened a very long time ago and much water has run in the brooks of the world under the bridges thereof since that time, but the mangers of the world are never empty. They are always full. In one sense, Christ is being born everywhere at this very hour and at all hours.

Let us give the Child the best we have, the best we can. Let us even now go down unto Bethlehem, laden with what we have for the use of the King, and let us see in every child of man that lacks anything this Christmas morning the image of Him who in that manger lay in Bethlehem and let us minister to their needs in love.

“The little Christ is coming down[1] Across the fields of snow; The pine trees greet Him where they stand, The willows bend to kiss His hand, The mountain laurel is ablush In hidden nooks; the wind, ahush And tiptoe, lest the violets wake Before their time for His sweet sake; The stars, down dropping, form a crown Upon the waiting hills below—- The little Christ is coming down Across the fields of snow. “The little Christ is coming down Across the city streets; The wind blows coldly from the north, His dimpled hands are stretching forth, And no one knows and no one cares, The priests are busy with their prayers, The jostling crowd hastes on apace, And no one sees the pleading face, None hears the cry as through the town He wanders with His small cold feet— The little Christ is coming down Across the city streets.”

What welcome shall we have for Him, my friends?

THE LONE SCOUT’S CHRISTMAS

Wherein is Set Forth the Courage and Resourcefulness of Youth

A Story for Boys

Every boy likes snow on Christmas Day, but there is such a thing as too much of it. Henry Ives, alone in the long railroad coach, stared out of the clouded windows at the whirling mass of snow with feelings of dismay. It was the day before Christmas, almost Christmas Eve. Henry did not feel any too happy, indeed he had hard work to keep down a sob. His mother had died but a few weeks before and his father, the captain of a freighter on the Great Lakes, had decided, very reluctantly, to send him to his brother who had a big ranch in western Nebraska.

Henry had never seen his uncle or his aunt. He did not know what kind of people they were. The loss of his mother had been a terrible blow to him and to be separated from his father had filled his cup of sorrow to the brim. His father’s work did not end with the close of navigation on the lakes, and he could not get away then although he promised to come and see Henry before the ice broke and traffic was resumed in the spring.

The long journey from the little Ohio town on Lake Erie to western Nebraska had been without mishap. His uncle’s ranch lay far away from the main line of the railroad on the end of the branch. There was but one train a day upon it, and that was a mixed train. The coach in which Henry sat was attached to the end of a long string of freight cars. Travel was infrequent in that section of the country. On this day Henry was the only passenger.

The train had been going up-grade for many miles and had just about reached the crest of the divide. Bucking the snow had become more and more difficult; several times the train had stopped. Sometimes the engine backed the train some distance to get headway to burst through the drift. So Henry thought nothing of it when the car came to a gentle stop.

The all-day storm blew from the west and the front windows of the car were covered with snow so he could not see ahead. Some time before the conductor and rear brakeman had gone forward to help dig the engine out of the drift and they had not come back.

Henry sat in silence for some time watching the whirling snow. He was sad; even the thought of the gifts of his father and friends in his trunk which stood in the baggage compartment of the car did not cheer him. More than all the Christmas gifts in the world, he wanted at that time his mother and father and friends.

“It doesn’t look as though it was going to be a very merry Christmas for me,” he said aloud at last, and then feeling a little stiff from having sat still so long he got up and walked to the front of the car.

It was warm and pleasant in the coach. The Baker heater was going at full blast and Henry noticed that there was plenty of coal. He tried to see out from the front door; but as he was too prudent to open it and let in the snow and cold he could make out nothing. The silence rather alarmed him. The train had never waited so long before.

Then, suddenly, came the thought that something very unusual was wrong. He must get a look at the train ahead. He ran back to the rear door, opened it and standing on the leeward side, peered forward. The engine and freight cars were not there! All he saw was the deep cut filled nearly to the height of the car with snow.

Henry was of a mechanical turn of mind and he realized that doubtless the coupling had broken. That was what had happened. The trainmen had not noticed it and the train had gone on and left the coach. The break had occurred at the crest of the divide and the train had gone rapidly down hill on the other side. The amount of snow told the boy that it would not be possible for the train to back up and pick up the car. He was alone in the wilderness of rolling hills in far western Nebraska. And this was Christmas Eve!

It was enough to bring despair to any boy’s heart. But Henry Ives was made of good stuff, he was a first-class Boy Scout and on his scout coat in the trunk were four Merit Badges. He had the spirit of his father, who had often bucked the November storms on Lake Superior in his great six-hundred-foot freighter, and danger inspired him.

He went back into the car, closed the door, and sat down to think it over. He had very vague ideas as to how long such a storm would last and how long he might be kept prisoner. He did not even know just where he was or how far it was to the end of the road and the town where his uncle’s ranch lay.

It was growing dark so he lighted one of the lamps close to the heater and had plenty of light. In doing so he noticed in the baggage rack a dinner pail. He remembered that the conductor had told him that his wife had packed that dinner pail and although it did not belong to the boy he felt justified in appropriating it in such circumstances. It was full of food—eggs, sandwiches, and a bottle of coffee. He was not very hungry but he ate a sandwich. He was even getting cheerful about the situation because he had something to do. It was an adventure.

While he had been eating, the storm had died away. Now he discovered that it had stopped snowing. All around him the country was a hilly, rolling prairie. The cut ran through a hill which seemed to be higher than others in the neighbourhood. If he could get on top of it he might see where he was. Although day was ending it was not yet dark and Henry decided upon an exploration.

Now he could not walk on foot in that deep and drifted snow without sinking over his head under ordinary conditions, but his troop had done a great deal of winter work, and strapped alongside of his big, telescope grip were a pair of snow-shoes which he himself had made, and with the use of which he was thoroughly familiar.

“I mustn’t spoil this new suit,” he told himself, so he ran to the baggage-room of the car, opened his trunk, got out his Scout uniform and slipped into it in a jiffy. “Glad I ran in that ‘antelope dressing race,’” he muttered, “but I’ll beat my former record now.” Over his khaki coat he put on his heavy sweater, then donned his wool cap and gloves, and with his snow-shoes under his arm hurried back to the rear platform. The snow was on a level with the platform. It rose higher as the coach reached into the cut. He saw that he would have to go down some distance before he could turn and attempt the hill.

He had used his snow-shoes many times in play but this was the first time they had ever been of real service to him. Thrusting his toes into the straps he struck out boldly.

To his delight he got along without the slightest difficulty although he strode with great care. He gained the level and in ten minutes found himself on the top of the hill, where he could see miles and miles of rolling prairie. He turned himself slowly about, to get a view of the country.

As his glance swept the horizon, at first it did not fall upon a single, solitary thing except a vast expanse of snow. There was not a tree even. The awful loneliness filled him with dismay. He had about given up when, in the last quarter of the horizon he saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, what looked like a fine trickle of blackish smoke that appeared to rise from a shapeless mound that bulged above the monotonous level.

“Smoke means fire, and fire means man,” he said, excitedly.

The sky was rapidly clearing. A few stars had already appeared. Remembering what he had learned on camp and trail, he took his bearing by the stars; he did not mean to get lost if he left that hill. Looking back, he could see the car, the lamp of which sent broad beams of light through the windows across the snow.

Then he plunged down the hill, thanking God in his boyish heart for the snow-shoes and his knowledge of them.

It did not take him long to reach the mound whence the smoke rose. It was a sod house, he found, built against a sharp knoll, which no doubt formed its rear wall. The wind had drifted the snow, leaving a half-open way to the door. Noiselessly the boy slipped down to it, drew his feet from the snow-shoes and knocked. There was a burst of sound inside. It made his heart jump, but he was reassured by the fact that the voices were those of children. What they said he could not make out; but, without further ado, he opened the door and entered.

It was a fairly large room. There were two beds in it, a stove, a table, a chest of drawers and a few chairs. From one of the beds three heads stared at him. As each head was covered with a wool cap, drawn down over the ears, like his own, he could not make out who they were. There were dishes on the table, but they were empty. The room was cold, although it was evident that there was still a little fire in the stove.

“Oh!” came from one of the heads in the bed. “I thought you were my father. What is your name?”

“My name,” answered the boy, “is Henry Ives. I was left behind alone in the railroad car about a mile back, and saw the smoke from your house and here I am.”

“Have you brought us anything to burn?” asked the second head.

“Or anything to eat?” questioned the third.

“My name is Mary Wright,” said the first speaker, “and these are my brothers George and Philip. Father went away yesterday morning with the team, to get some coal and some food. He went to Kiowa.”

“That’s where I am going,” interrupted Henry.

“Yes,” continued Mary, “I suppose he can’t get back because of the snow. It’s an awful storm.”

“We haven’t anything to eat, and I don’t know when father will be back,” said George.

“And it’s Christmas Eve,” wailed Philip, who appeared to be about seven.

He set up a howl about this which his brother George, who was about nine, had great difficulty in quieting.

“We put the last shovelful of coal in the stove,” said Mary Wright, “and got into bed to keep warm.”

“I’ll go outside while you get up and dress,” said Henry considerately, “and then we will try and get to the car. It is warm there, and there is something to eat.”

“You needn’t go,” said the girl; “we are all dressed.” She threw back the covers and sprang out of bed. She was very pretty and about Henry’s own age, he discovered, although she was pale and haggard with cold and hunger.

“Goody, goody!” exclaimed little Philip, as his feet landed on the floor. “Maybe we’ll have some Christmas, too.”

“Maybe we will,” said Henry, smiling at him. “At least we will have something to eat.”

“Well, let’s start right away then,” urged George.

This brought Henry face to face with a dilemma. “I have only one pair of snow-shoes,” he said at last, “and you probably don’t know how to use them anyway, and you can’t walk on the snow.”

“I have a sled,” suggested George.

“That won’t do,” said Henry. “I’ve got to have something that won’t sink in the snow—that will lie flat, so I can draw you along.”

“How about that table?” said the girl.

“Good suggestion,” cried Henry.

It was nothing but a common kitchen table. He turned it upside down, took his Scout axe from its sheath, knocked the legs off, fastened a piece of clothesline to the butts of two of them.

“Now if I could have something to turn up along the front, so as not to dig into the snow,” he said, “it would be fine.” He thought a moment. “Where is that sled of yours, George?”

“Here,” said George, dragging it forth. The runners curved upwards. Henry cut them off, in spite of Philip’s protests. He nailed these runners to the front of the table and stretched rope tightly across them so that he had four up-curves in front of the table.

“Now I want something to stretch on these things, so as to let the sled ride over the snow, instead of digging into it,” he said to the girl.

She brought him her father’s old “slicker.” Henry cut it into suitable shape and nailed and lashed it securely to the runners and to the table top. Now he had a flat-bottomed sled with a rising front to it that would serve. He smiled as he looked at the queer contrivance and said aloud: “I wish Mr. Lesher could see that!”

“Who is Mr. Lesher?” asked George.

“Oh, he’s my Scoutmaster back in Ohio. Now come on!”

He opened the door, drew the sled outside, pushed it up on the snow and stepped on it. It bore his weight perfectly.

“It’s all right,” he cried. “But it won’t take all three of you at once.”

“I’ll wait,” said Mary, “you take the two boys.”

“Very well,” said Henry.

“You’ll surely come back for me?”

“Surely, and I think it’s mighty brave of you to stay behind. Now come on, boys,” he said.

Leaving Mary filled with pleasure at such praise, he put the two boys carefully into the sled, stepped into his snow-shoes and dragged them rapidly across the prairie. It was quite dark now, but the sky was clear and the stars were bright. The storm had completely stopped. He remembered the bearings he had taken by the stars, and reached the high hill without difficulty. Below him lay the car.

Presently he drew up before the platform. He put the boys in the car, told them to go up to the fire and warm themselves and not to touch anything. Then he went back for the girl.

“Did you think I was not coming?” he asked as he re-entered the cabin.

“I knew you would come back,” said the girl and it was Henry’s turn to tingle with pride.

He wrapped her up carefully, and fairly ran back to the car. They found the boys warm and comfortable and greatly excited.

“If we just had a Christmas tree and Santa Claus and something to eat and a drink of water and a place to sleep,” said the youngest boy, “it would be great fun.”

“I am afraid we can’t manage the Christmas tree,” said Henry, “but we can have everything else.”

“Do you mean Santy?”

“Santy too,” answered the boy. “First of all, we will get something to eat.”

“We haven’t had anything since morning,” said the girl. Henry divided the sandwiches into three portions. As it happened, there were three hard-boiled eggs. He gave one portion to each of his guests.

“You haven’t left any for yourself,” said Mary.

“I ate before I looked for you,” answered Henry, although the one sandwich had by no means satisfied his hunger.

“My, but this is good!” said George.

“Our mother is dead,” said Mary Wright after a pause, “and our father is awful poor. He has taken out a homestead and we are trying to live on it until he gets it proved up. We have had a very hard time since mother died.”

“Yes, I know,” said Henry, gravely; “my mother died, too.”

“I wonder what time it is?” asked the girl at last.

Henry pulled out his watch. “It is after six o’clock,” he said.

“Say,” broke in George, “that’s a funny kind of a uniform you’ve got on.”

“It is a Boy Scout uniform.”

“Oh, is it?” exclaimed George. “I never saw one before. I wish I could be a Scout!”

“Maybe you can,” answered Henry. “I am going to organize a troop when I get to Kiowa. But now I’m going to fix beds for you. Of course we are all sleepy after such a hard day.”

He had seen the trainmen lift up the bottoms of the seats and lay them lengthwise of the car. He did this, and soon made four fairly comfortable beds. The two nearest the stove he gave to the boys. He indicated the next one was for Mary, and the one further down toward the middle of the car was for himself.

“You can all go to bed right away,” he said when he had made his preparations. The two boys decided to accept this advice. Mary said she would stay up a little longer and talk with Henry.

“You can’t undress,” she said to the two boys. “You’ll have to sleep as you are.” She sat down in one of the car seats; Philip knelt down at one knee and George at the other. The girl, who was barely fifteen had already taken her mother’s place. She laid her hand on each bent head and listened while one after the other the boys said their prayers. She kissed them good-night, saw them comfortably laid out on the big cushions with their overcoats for pillows and turned away.

“Say,” began Philip, “you forgot something, Mary.”

“What have I forgotten, dear?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Eve and we must hang up our stockings.”

Mary threw up her hands. “I am afraid this is too far away for Santa Claus. He won’t know that we are out here,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Henry, thinking rapidly, “let them hang them up.”

Mary looked at him in surprise. “They haven’t any to hang up,” she said. “We can’t take those they’re wearing.”

“You should have thought of that,” wailed Philip, “before you brought us here.”

“I have some extra ones in my bag,” said Henry. “We will hang them up.”

He opened the bag and brought out three stockings, one for each of his guests. He fastened them to the baggage racks above the seats and watched the two boys contentedly close their eyes and go to sleep.

“They will be awfully disappointed when they wake up in the morning and do not find anything in them,” said Mary.

“They’re going to find something in them,” said Henry confidently.

He went to the end of the car, opened his trunk and lifted out various packages which had been designed for him. Of course he was going on sixteen, but there were some things that would do for Philip and plenty of things for George and some good books that he had selected himself that would do for Mary. Then there were candy and nuts and cakes and oranges galore. Mary was even more excited than he was as they filled the boys’ stockings and arranged things that were too big to go in them.

“These are your own Christmas gifts, I know,” said the girl, “and you haven’t hung up your stocking.”

“I don’t need to. I have had my Christmas present.”

“And what is that?”

“A chance to make a merry Christmas for you and your little brothers,” answered Henry, and his heart was light.

“How long do you suppose we will have to stay here?” asked the girl.

“I don’t know. I suppose they will try to dig us out to-morrow. Meanwhile we have nuts, oranges, crackers, and little cakes, to say nothing of the candy, to live on. Now you go to bed and have a good sleep.”

“And what will you do?”

“I’ll stay up for a while and read one of these books and keep the fire going.”

“You are awfully good to us,” said Mary, turning away. “You are just like a real Santa Claus.”

“We have to help other people—especially people in trouble,” answered the boy. “It is one of the first Scout rules. I am really glad I got left behind and found you. Good-night.”

The girl, whose experience that day had been hard, soon fell asleep with her brothers. Henry did not feel sleepy at all; he was bright and happy and rejoiced. This certainly was an adventure. He wondered what Dick and Joe and Spike and the other fellows of his troop would think when he wrote them about it. He did not realize that he had saved the lives of the children, who would assuredly have frozen to death in the cabin.

When he was satisfied that Mary was sound asleep, he put some things in her stocking and then piled in the rack over her head two books he thought the girl would like. It was late when he went to sleep himself, happier than he had dreamed he could be.

He awoke once in the night to replenish the fire, but he was sleeping soundly at seven o’clock in the morning when the door of the car opened and half a dozen men filed in. They had not made any noise. Even the big snow-plough tearing open the way from Kiowa had not disturbed the four sleepers.

The first man in was the conductor. After the trainmen had discovered that the coach had been left behind they had managed to get into Kiowa and had started back at once with the rotary plough to open the road and to rescue the boy. Henry’s uncle had been in town to meet Henry, and of course the trainmen let him go back with them on the plough. The third man was Mr. Wright. He had been caught by the storm and, as he said, the abandoned coach must be near his claim, he asked to be taken along because he was afraid his children would be freezing to death.

The men stopped and surveyed the sleeping boys and girl. Their glances ranged from the children to the bulging stockings and the pile of Christmas presents in the racks.

“Well, can you beat that?” said the conductor.

“By George!” exclaimed Rancher Ives, “a regular Christmas layout!”

“These are my children safe and well, thank God!” cried Mr. Wright.

“Boy,” said the conductor, laying his hand on Henry’s shoulder, “we came to wish you a Merry Christmas.”

“Father!” cried Mary Wright, awakened by the voice, and the next minute she was in his arms, while she told him rapidly what Henry had done for them all.

The boys were awake, too, but humanity had no attraction for them.

“Santa has come!” shouted Philip making a dive for his stocking.

“This is your uncle, Jim Ives,” said the conductor to Henry.

“And this is my father,” said Mary in turn.

“I am awfully sorry,” said Henry to the conductor, “but we had to eat your dinner. And I had to chop up your kitchen table,” he added, turning to Mr. Wright.

“I am glad there was something to eat in the pail,” said one.

“You could have chopped the cabin down,” said the other.

“By George!” said the ranchman proudly. “I wrote to your father to send you out here and we’d make a man of you, but it seems to me you are a man already,” he continued as Mary Wright poured forth the story of their rescue.

“No, I am not a man,” said Henry to his uncle, as he flushed with pride at the hearty praise of these men. “I am just a—”

“Just a what?” asked the conductor as the boy hesitated.

“Why, just a Boy Scout,” answered Henry.

ON CHRISTMAS GIVING

Being a Word of Much Needed Advice

Christmas is the birthday of our Lord, upon which we celebrate God’s ineffable gift of Himself to His children. No human soul has ever been able to realize the full significance of that gift, no heart has ever been glad enough to contain the joy of it, and no mind has ever been wise enough to express it. Nevertheless we powerfully appreciate the blessing and would fain convey it fitly. Therefore to commemorate that great gift the custom of exchanging tokens of love and remembrance has grown until it has become well nigh universal. This is a day in which we ourselves crave, as never at any other time, happiness and peace for those we love and that ought to include everybody, for with the angelic message in our ears it should be impossible to hate any one on Christmas day however we may feel before or after.

But despite the best of wills almost inevitably Christmas in many instances has created a burdensome demand. Perhaps by the method of exclusion we shall find out what Christmas should be. It is not a time for extravagance, for ostentation, for vulgar display, it is possible to purchase pleasure for someone else at too high a price to ourselves. To paraphrase Polonius, “Costly thy gift as thy purse can buy, rich but not expressed in fancy, for the gift oft proclaims the man.” In making presents observe three principal facts; the length of your purse, the character of your friend, and the universal rule of good taste. Do not plunge into extravagance from which you will scarcely recover except in months of nervous strain and desperate financial struggle. On the other hand do not be mean and niggardly in your gifts. Oh, not that; avoid selfishness at Christmas, if at no other time. Rather no gift at all than a grudging one. Let your offerings represent yourselves and your affections. Indeed if they do not represent you, they are not gifts at all. “The gift without the giver is bare.”

And above all banish from your mind the principle of reciprocity. The lex talionis has no place in Christmas giving. Do not think or feel that you must give to someone because someone gave to you. There is no barter about it. You give because you love and without a thought of return. Credit others with the same feeling and be governed thereby. I know one upon whose Christmas list there are over one hundred and fifty people, rich and poor, high and low, able and not able. That man would be dismayed beyond measure if everyone of those people felt obliged to make a return for the Christmas remembrances he so gladly sends them.

In giving remember after all the cardinal principle of the day. Let your gift be an expression of your kindly remembrance, your gentle consideration, your joyful spirit, your spontaneous gratitude, your abiding desire for peace and goodwill toward men. Hunt up somebody who needs and who without you may lack and suffer heart hunger, loneliness, and disappointment.

Nor is Christmas a time for gluttonous eating and drinking. To gorge one’s self with quantities of rich and indigestible food is not the noblest method of commemorating the day. The rules and laws of digestion are not abrogated upon the Holy day. These are material cautions, the day has a spiritual significance of which material manifestations are, or ought to be, outward and visible expressions only.

Christmas is one of the great days of obligation in the Church year, then as at Easter if at no other time, Christians should gather around the table of the Lord, kneeling before God’s altar in the ministering of that Holy Communion which unites them with the past, the present, and the future—the communion of the saints of God’s Holy Church with His Beloved Son. Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become factors 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.

A CHRISTMAS GREETING

“Good Will Toward Men”—St. Luke 11-14.

There was a time when the spirit of Christmas was of the present. There is a period when most of it is of the past. There shall come a day perhaps when all of it will be of the future. The child time, the present; the middle years, the past; old age, the future.

Come to my mind Christmas Days of long ago. As a boy again I enter into the spirit of the Christmas stockings hanging before my fire. I know what the children think to-day. I recall what they feel.

Passes childhood, and I look down the nearer years. There rise before me remembrances of Christmas Days on storm-tossed seas, where waves beat upon the ice-bound ship. I recall again the bitter touch of water-warping winter, of drifts of snow, of wind-swept plains. In the gamut of my remembrance I am once more in the poor, mean, lonely little sanctuary out on the prairie, with a handful of Christians, mostly women, gathered together in the freezing, draughty building. In later years I worship in the great cathedral church, ablaze with lights, verdant and fragrant with the evergreen pines, echoing with joyful carols and celestial harmonies. My recollections are of contrasts like those of life—joy and sadness, poverty and ease.

And the pictures are full of faces, many of which may be seen no more by earthly vision. I miss the clasp of vanished hands, I crave the sound of voices stilled. As we old and older grow, there is a note of sadness in our glee. Whether we will or not we must twine the cypress with the holly. The recollection of each passing year brings deeper regret. How many have gone from those circles that we recall when we were children? How many little feet that pattered upon the stair on Christmas morning now tread softer paths and walk in broader ways; sisters and brothers who used to come back from the far countries to the old home—alas, they cannot come from the farther country in which they now are, and perhaps, saddest thought of all, we would not wish them to come again. How many, with whom we joined hands around the Christmas tree, have gone?

Circles are broken, families are separated, loved ones are lost, but the old world sweeps on. Others come to take our places. As we stood at the knee of some unforgotten mother, so other children stand. As we listened to the story of the Christ Child from the lips of some grey old father, so other children listen and we ourselves perchance are fathers or mothers too. Other groups come to us for the deathless story. Little heads which recall vanished halcyon days of youth bend around another younger mother. Smaller hands than ours write letters to Santa Claus and hear the story, the sweetest story ever told, of the Baby who came to Mary and through her to all the daughters and sons of women on that winter night on the Bethlehem hills.

And we thank God for the children who take us out of the past, out of ourselves, away from recollections that weigh us down; the children that weave in the woof and warp of life when our own youth has passed, some of the buoyancy, the joy, the happiness of the present; the children in whose opening lives we turn hopefully to the future. We thank God at this Christmas season that it pleased Him to send His beloved Son to come to us as a little child, like any other child. We thank God that in the lesser sense we may see in every child who comes to-day another incarnation of divinity. We thank God for the portion of His Spirit with which He dowers every child of man, just as we thank Him for pouring it all upon the Infant in the Manger.

There is no age that has not had its prophet. No country, no people, but that has produced its leader. But did any of them ever before come as a little child? Did any of them begin to lead while yet in arms? Lodges there upon any other baby brow “the round and top of sovereignty?” What distinguished Christ and His Christian followers from all the world? Behold! no mighty monarch, but “a little child shall lead them!”

You may see through the glass darkly, you may not know or understand the blessedness of faith in Him as He would have you know it, but there is nothing that can dim the light that radiates from that birth in the rude cave back of the inn. Ah, it pierces through the darkness of that shrouding night. It shines to-day. Still sparkles the Star in the East. He is that Star.

There is nothing that can take from mankind—even doubting mankind—the spirit of Christ and the Christmas season. Our celebrations do not rest upon the conclusions of logic, or the demonstrations of philosophy; I would not even argue that they depend inevitably or absolutely upon the possession of a certain faith in Jesus, but we accept Christmas, nevertheless; we endeavour to apply the Christmas spirit, for just once in the year; it may be because we cannot, try as we may, crush out utterly and entirely the divinity that is in us that makes for God. The stories and tales for Christmas which have for their theme the hard heart softened are not mere fictions of the imagination. They rest upon an instinctive consciousness of a profound philosophic truth.

What is the unpardonable sin, I wonder? Is it to be persistently and forever unkind? Does it mean perhaps the absolute refusal to accept the principle of love which is indeed creation’s final law? The lessons of the Christmastide are so many; the appeals that now may be made to humanity crowd to the lips from full minds and fuller hearts. Might we not reduce them all to the explication of the underlying principle of God’s purpose to us, as expressed in those themic words of love with which angels and men greeted the advent of the Child on the first Christmas morning, “Good will toward men?”

Let us then show our good will toward men by doing good and bringing happiness to someone—if not to everyone—at this Christmas season. Put aside the memories of disappointments, of sorrows that have not vanished, of cares that still burden, and do good in spite of them because you would not dim the brightness of the present for any human heart with the shadows of old regrets. Do good because of a future which opens possibilities before you, for others, if not for yourselves.

Brethren, friends, all, let us make up our minds that we will be kindly affectioned one to another in our homes and out of them, on this approaching Christmas day. That the old debate, the ancient strife, the rankling recollection, the sharp contention, shall be put aside, that “envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness” shall be done away with. Let us forgive and forget; but if we cannot forget let us at least forgive. And so let there be peace between man and man at Christmas—a truce of God.

Let us pray that Love shall come as a little child to our households. That He shall be in our hearts and shall find His expression in all that we do or say on this birthday of goodness and cheer for the world. Then let us resolve that the spirit of the day shall be carried out through our lives, that as Christ did not come for an hour, but for a lifetime, we would fain become as little children on this day of days that we may begin a new life of good will to men.

Let us make this a new birthday of kindness and love that shall endure. That is a Christmas hope, a Christmas wish. Let us give to it the gracious expression of life among men.

Asthma was long considered a psychosomatic disease. Hippocrates, circa 450 BC, was the first to call the disease “asthma” and to recognize it as a medical condition. During the 1930s–50s, asthma was counted as one of the ‘holy seven’ psychosomatic illnesses; psychoanalytic theories described its aetiology as psychological, with treatment often primarily involving psychoanalysis and other ‘talking cures’. As the asthmatic wheeze was interpreted as the child’s suppressed cry for its mother, psychoanalysts viewed the treatment of depression as especially important for individuals with asthma.

Reference

Opolski M, Wilson I (September 2005). “Asthma and depression: a pragmatic review of the literature and recommendations for future research”. Clin Pract Epidemol Ment Health 1: 18. doi:10.1186/1745-0179-1-18. PMID 16185365.

Asthma is a disease that affects your lungs. It causes repeated episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and nighttime or early morning coughing. Asthma can be controlled by taking medicine and avoiding the triggers that can cause an attack. You must also remove the triggers in your environment that can make your asthma worse.

According to WHO estimates, 300 million people suffer from asthma and 255 000 people died of asthma in 2005.
Asthma is the most common chronic disease among children.

Asthma is not just a public health problem for high income countries: it occurs in all countries regardless of level of development. Over 80% of asthma deaths occurs in low and lower-middle income countries.

Asthma is under-diagnosed and under-treated, creating a substantial burden to individuals and families and possibly restricting individuals’ activities for a lifetime.

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and stopped.

“Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn’t possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!”

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because “three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,” and so forth, would have become a mere United States’ security if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he thought.

Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

“Ding, dong!”

“A quarter past,” said Scrooge, counting.

“Ding, dong!”

“Half-past!” said Scrooge.

“Ding, dong!”

“A quarter to it,” said Scrooge.

“Ding, dong!”

“The hour itself,” said Scrooge, triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

“Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Scrooge.

“I am!”

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Who, and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.

“No. Your past.”

Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

“What!” exclaimed the Ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!”

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully “bonneted” the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

“Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

“Rise! and walk with me!”

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

“I am a mortal,” Scrooge remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

“Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

“Good Heaven!” said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!”

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten!

“Your lip is trembling,” said the Ghost. “And what is that upon your cheek?”

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

“You recollect the way?” inquired the Spirit.

“Remember it!” cried Scrooge with fervour; “I could walk it blindfold.”

“Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!” observed the Ghost. “Let us go on.”

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the Ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the Ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

“Why, it’s Ali Baba!” Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. “It’s dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,” said Scrooge, “and his wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what’s his name, who was put down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don’t you see him! And the Sultan’s Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I’m glad of it. What business had he to be married to the Princess!”

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

“There’s the Parrot!” cried Scrooge. “Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn’t. It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!”

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, “Poor boy!” and cried again.

“I wish,” Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: “but it’s too late now.”

“What is the matter?” asked the Spirit.

“Nothing,” said Scrooge. “Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.”

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!”

Scrooge’s former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her “Dear, dear brother.”

“I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!”

“Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

“Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes, “and are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

“You are quite a woman, little Fan!” exclaimed the boy.

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her.

A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time, sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of “something” to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.

“Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,” said the Ghost. “But she had a large heart!”

“So she had,” cried Scrooge. “You’re right. I will not gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!”

“She died a woman,” said the Ghost, “and had, as I think, children.”

“One child,” Scrooge returned.

“True,” said the Ghost. “Your nephew!”

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, “Yes.”

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

“Know it!” said Scrooge. “Was I apprenticed here!”

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

“Why, it’s old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!”

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

“Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

Scrooge’s former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice.

“Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

“Yo ho, my boys!” said Fezziwig. “No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let’s have the shutters up,” cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, “before a man can say Jack Robinson!”

You wouldn’t believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters—one, two, three—had ’em up in their places—four, five, six—barred ’em and pinned ’em—seven, eight, nine—and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

“Hilli-ho!” cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. “Clear away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!”

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter’s night.

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, “Well done!” and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!) struck up “Sir Roger de Coverley.” Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no notion of walking.

THE DOG AND THE OYSTER

There was once a Dog who was very fond of eggs. He visited the hen house very often and at last got so greedy that he would swallow the eggs whole.

One day the Dog wandered down to the seashore. There he spied an Oyster. In a twinkling the Oyster was resting in the Dog’s stomach, shell and all.

It pained the Dog a good deal, as you can guess.

“I’ve learned that all round things are not eggs,” he said groaning.

Act in haste and repent at leisure—and often in pai