Chapter XIV: Part II: Miscellanies (2)

Among the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the present owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in prayer and humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God of good will not permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to become his instruments for removal.

We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To carry her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her footprint on every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to maintain in every way her own advantage,--is and has been her object, as much as that of any nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged Irish,--for ourselves we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on all that has been written about the right of that war as mere sophistry,)--no less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his "tarred great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena,--all can tell whether she be righteous or generous in her conquests. Nay, let myriads of her own children say whether she will abstain from sacrificing, mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the education of immortal souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of Napoleon, for we must ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made of her power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of liberating Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we must commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey--and a great nation could fail in this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling evinced! All this we say, because we are sometimes impatient of England's brag on the subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done one good act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the champion of freedom?

And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was right and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense--acted fully, decidedly. She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved money. She has not let go the truth she then laid to heart, and continues the resolute foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to her as we borrow this holiday--the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent of her practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we must feel her to be, in this matter, an elder sister, entitled to cry shame to us. And if her feelings be those of a sister indeed, how must she mourn to see her next of kin pushing back, as far as in her lies, the advance of this good cause, binding those whom the old world had awakened from its sins enough to loose! But courage, sister! All is not yet lost! There is here a faithful band, determined to expiate the crimes that have been committed in the name of liberty. On this day they meet and vow themselves to the service; and, as they look in one another's glowing eyes, they read there assurance that the end is not yet, and that they, forced as they are

"To keep in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Falsehood, miserable train,"

"Turn that necessity to glorious gain,"

"Transmute them and subdue."

Indeed, we do not see that they "bate a jot of heart or hope," and it is because they feel that the power of the Great Spirit, and its peculiar workings in the spirit of this age, are with them. There is action and reaction all the time; and though the main current is obvious, there are many little eddies and counter-currents. Mrs. Norton writes a poem on the sufferings of the poor, and in it she, as episode, tunefully laments the sufferings of the Emperor of all the Russias for the death of a beloved daughter. And it _was_ a deep grief; yet it did not soften his heart, or make it feel for man. The first signs of his recovered spirits are in new efforts to crush out the heart of Poland, and to make the Jews lay aside the hereditary marks of their national existence--to them a sacrifice far worse than death. But then,--Count Apraxin is burned alive by his infuriate serfs, and the life of a serf is far more dog-like, or rather machine-like, than that of _our_ slaves. Still the serf can rise in vengeance--can admonish the autocrat that humanity may yet turn again and rend him.

So with us. The most shameful deed has been done that ever disgraced a nation, because the most contrary to consciousness of right. Other nations have done wickedly, but we have surpassed them all in trampling under foot the principles that had been assumed as the basis of our national existence, and shown a willingness to forfeit our honor in the face of the world.

The following stanzas, written by a friend some time since, on the fourth of July, exhibit these contrasts so forcibly, that we cannot do better than insert them here:--

Loud peal of bells and beat of drums
Salute approaching dawn;
And the deep cannon's fearful bursts
Announce a nation's morn.

Imposing ranks of freemen stand
And claim their proud birthright;
Impostors, rather! thus to brand
A name they hold so bright.

Let the day see the pageant show;
Float, banners, to the breeze!
Shout Liberty's great name throughout
Columbia's lands and seas!

Give open sunlight to the free;
But for Truth's equal sake,
When night sinks down upon the land,
Proclaim dead Freedom's wake!

Beat, muffled drums! Toll, funeral bell
Nail every flag half-mast;
For though we fought the battle well,
We're traitors at the last.

Let the whole nation join in one
Procession to appear;
We and our sons lead on the front,
Our slaves bring up the rear.

America is rocked within
Thy cradle, Liberty,
By Africa's poor, palsied hand--
Strange inconsistency!

We've dug one grave as deep as Death,
For Tyranny's black sin;
And dug another at its side
To thrust our brother in.

We challenge all the world aloud,--
"Lo, Tyranny's deep grave!"
And all the world points back and cries,
"Thou fool! Behold thy slave!"

Yes, rally, brave America,
Thy noble hearts and free
Around the Eagle, as he soars
Upward in majesty.

One half thy emblem is the bird,
Out-facing thus the day;
But wouldst thou make him wholly thine,--
_Give him a helpless prey!_

This should be sung in Charleston at nine o'clock in the evening, when the drums are heard proclaiming "dead Freedom's wake," as they summon to their homes, or to the custody of the police, every human being with a black skin who is found walking without a pass from a white. Or it might have been sung to advantage the night after Charleston had shown her independence and care of domestic institutions by expulsion of the venerable envoy of Massachusetts! Its expression would seem even more forcible than now, when sung so near the facts, when the eagle soars so close above his prey.

How deep the shadow! yet cleft by light. There is a counter-current that sets towards the deep. We are inclined to weigh as of almost equal weight with all we have had to trouble us as to the prolongation of slavery, the hopes that may be gathered from the course of such a man as Cassius M. Clay,--a man open to none of the accusations brought to diminish the influence of abolitionists in general, for he has eaten the bread wrought from slavery, and has shared the education that excuses the blindness of the slaveholder. He speaks as one having authority; no one can deny that he knows where he is. In the prime of manhood, of talent, and the energy of a fine enthusiasm, he comes forward with deed and word to do his devoir in this cause, never to leave the field till he can take with him the wronged wretches rescued by his devotion.

Now he has made this last sacrifice of the prejudices of "southern chivalry," more persons than ever will be ready to join the herald's cry, "God speed the right!" And we cannot but believe his noble example will be followed by many young men in the slaveholding ranks, brothers in a new, sacred band, vowed to the duty, not merely of defending, but far more sacred, of purifying their homes.

The event of which this day is the anniversary, affords a sufficient guarantee of the safety and practicability of strong measures for this purification. Various accounts are given to the public, of the state of the British West Indies, and the foes of emancipation are of course constantly on the alert to detect any unfavorable result which may aid them in opposing the good work elsewhere. But through all statements these facts shine clear as the sun at noonday, that the measure was there carried into effect with an ease and success, and has shown in the African race a degree of goodness, docility, capacity for industry and self-culture entirely beyond or opposed to the predictions which darkened so many minds with fears. Those fears can never again be entertained or uttered with the same excuse. One great example of the _safety of doing right_ exists; true, there is but one of the sort, but volumes may be preached from such a text.

We, however, preach not; there are too many preachers already in the field, abler, more deeply devoted to the cause. Endless are the sermons of these modern crusaders, these ardent "sons of thunder," who have pledged themselves never to stop or falter till this one black spot be purged away from the land which gave them birth. They cry aloud and spare not; they spare not others, but then, neither do they spare themselves; and such are ever the harbingers of a new advent of the Holy Spirit. Our venerated friend, Dr. Channing, sainted in more memories than any man who has left us in this nineteenth century, uttered the last of his tones of soft, solemn, convincing, persuasive eloquence, on this day and this occasion. The hills of Lenox laughed and were glad as they heard him who showed in that last address (an address not only to the men of Lenox, but to all men, for he was in the highest sense the friend of man) the unsullied purity of infancy, the indignation of youth at vice and wrong, informed and tempered by the mild wisdom of age. It is a beautiful fact that this should have been the last public occasion of his life.

Last year a noble address was delivered by R. W. Emerson, in which he broadly showed the _juste milieu_ views upon this subject in the holy light of a high ideal day. The truest man grew more true as he listened; for the speech, though it had the force of fact and the lustre of thought, was chiefly remarkable as sharing the penetrating quality of the "still small voice," most often heard when no man speaks. Now it spoke _through_ a man; and no personalities, or prejudices, or passions could be perceived to veil or disturb its silver sound.

These speeches are on record; little can be said that is not contained in them. But we can add evermore our aspirations for thee, O our country! that thou mayst not long need to borrow a _holy_ day; not long have all thy festivals blackened by falsehood, tyranny, and a crime for which neither man below nor God above can much longer pardon thee. For ignorance may excuse error; but thine--it is vain to deny it--is conscious wrong, and vows thee to the Mammon whose wages are endless remorse or final death.

THANKSGIVING.

"Canst thou give thanks for aught that has been given
Except by making earth more worthy heaven?
Just stewardship the Master hoped from thee;
Harvests from time to bless eternity."

Thanksgiving is peculiarly the festival day of New England. Elsewhere, other celebrations rival its attractions, but in that region where the Puritans first returned thanks that some among them had been sustained by a great hope and earnest resolve amid the perils of the ocean, wild beasts, and famine, the old spirit which hallowed the day still lingers, and forbids that it should be entirely devoted to play and plum-pudding.

And yet, as there is always this tendency; as the twelfth-night cake is baked by many a hostess who would be puzzled if you asked her, "Twelfth night after or before what?" and the Christmas cake by many who know no other Christmas service, so it requires very serious assertion and proof from the minister to convince his parishioners that the turkey and plum-pudding, which are presently to occupy his place in their attention, should not be the chief objects of the day.

And in other regions, where the occasion is observed, it is still more as one for a meeting of families and friends to the enjoyment of a good dinner, than for any higher purpose.

This, indeed, is one which we want not to depreciate. If this manner of keeping the day be likely to persuade the juniors of the party that the celebrated Jack Horner is the prime model for brave boys, and that grandparents are chiefly to be respected as the givers of grand feasts yet a meeting in the spirit of kindness, however dull and blind, is not wholly without use in healing differences and promoting good intentions. The instinct of family love, intended by Heaven to make those of one blood the various and harmonious organs of one mind, is never wholly without good influence. Family love, I say, for family pride is never without bad influence, and it too often takes the place of its mild and healthy sister.

Yet where society is at all simple, it is cheering to see the family circle thus assembled, if only because its patriarchal form is in itself so excellent. The presence of the children animates the old people, while the respect and attention they demand refine the gayety of the young. Yes, it is cheering to see, in some large room, the elders talking near the bright fire, while the cousins of all ages are amusing themselves in knots. Here is almost all the good, and very little of the ill, that can be found in society, got together merely for amusement.

Yet how much nobler, more exhilarating, and purer would be the atmosphere of that circle if the design of its pious founders were remembered by those who partake this festival! if they dared not attend the public jubilee till private retrospect of the past year had been taken in the spirit of the old rhyme, which we all bear in mind if not in heart,--

"What hast thou done that's worth the doing,
And what pursued that's worth pursuing?
What sought thou knew'st that thou shouldst shun,
What done thou shouldst have left undone?"

A crusade needs also to be made this day into the wild places of each heart, taking for its device, "Lord, cleanse thou me from secret faults; keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins." Would not that circle be happy as if music, from invisible agents, floated through it if each member of it considered every other member as a bequest from heaven; if he supposed that the appointed nearness in blood or lot was a sign to him that he must exercise his gifts of every kind as given peculiarly in their behalf; that if richer in temper, in talents, in knowledge, or in worldly goods, here was the innermost circle of his poor; that he must clothe these naked, whether in body or mind, soothing the perverse, casting light into the narrow chamber, or, most welcome task of all! extending a hand at the right moment to one uncertain of his way? It is this spirit that makes the old man to be revered as a Nestor, rather than put aside like a worn-out garment. It is such a spirit that sometimes has given to the young child a ministry as of a parent in the house.

But, if charity begin at home, it must not end there; and, while purifying the innermost circle, let us not forget that it depends upon the great circle, and that again on it; that no home can be healthful in which are not cherished seeds of good for the world at large. Thy child, thy brother, are given to thee only as an example of what is due from thee to all men. It is true that, if you, in anger, call your brother fool, no deeds of so-called philanthropy shall save you from the punishment; for your philanthropy must be from the love of excitement, not the love of man, or of goodness. But then you must visit the Gentiles also, and take time for knowing what aid the woman of Samaria may need.

A noble Catholic writer, in the true sense as well as by name a Catholic, describes a tailor as giving a dinner on an occasion which had brought honor to his house, which, though a humble, was not a poor house. In his glee, the tailor was boasting a little of the favors and blessings of his lot, when suddenly a thought stung him. He stopped, and cutting away half the fowl that lay before him, sent it in a dish with the best knives, bread, and napkin, and a brotherly message that was better still, to a widow near, who must, he knew, be sitting in sadness and poverty among her children. His little daughter was the messenger. If parents followed up the indulgences heaped upon their children at Thanksgiving dinners with similar messages, there would not be danger that children should think enjoyment of sensual pleasures the only occasion that demands Thanksgiving.

And suppose, while the children were absent on their errands of justice, as they could not fail to think them, if they compared the hovels they must visit with their own comfortable homes, their elders, touched by a sense of right, should be led from discussion of the rivalries of trade or fashion to inquiry whether they could not impart of all that was theirs, not merely one poor dinner once a year, but all their mental and material wealth for the benefit of all men. If they do not sell it _all_ at once, as the rich young man was bid to do as a test of his sincerity, they may find some way in which it could be invested so as to show enough obedience to the law and the prophets to love our neighbor as ourselves.

And he who once gives himself to such thoughts will find it is not merely moral gain for which he shall return thanks another year with the return of this day. In the present complex state of human affairs, you cannot be kind unless you are wise. Thoughts of amaranthine bloom will spring up in the fields ploughed to give food to suffering men. It would, indeed, seem to be a simple matter at first glance. "Lovest thou me?"--"Feed my lambs." But now we have not only to find pasture, but to detect the lambs under the disguise of wolves, and restore them by a spell, like that the shepherd used, to their natural form and whiteness.

And for this present day appointed for Thanksgiving, we may say that if we know of so many wrongs, woes, and errors in the world yet unredressed; if in this nation recent decisions have shown a want of moral discrimination in important subjects, that make us pause and doubt whether we can join in the formal congratulations that we are still bodily alive, unassailed by the ruder modes of warfare, and enriched with the fatness of the land; yet, on the other side, we know of causes not so loudly proclaimed why we should give thanks. Abundantly and humbly we must render them for the movement, now sensible in the heart of the civilized world, although it has not pervaded the entire frame--for that movement of contrition and love which forbids men of earnest thought to eat, drink, or be merry while other men are steeped in ignorance, corruption, and woe; which calls the king from his throne of gold, and the poet from his throne of mind, to lie with the beggar in the kennel, or raise him from it; which says to the poet, "You must reform rather than create a world," and to him of the golden crown, "You cannot long remain a king unless you are also a man."

Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far enough for those who have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case that "those who came to scoff remain to pray." In two articles of reviews, one foreign and one domestic, which have come under our eye within the last fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that without a high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the intention of God as to the destiny of man.

We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to organize an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, wholly Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood of, "Lord, I thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as other men are,--not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, but for instruction, example, and the "preventing God," every sin that can be named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, too, may become a man. Neither his open nor our secret fault must utterly dismay us. We will treat him as if he had a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give him some crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love below have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly ulcers that deform him now.

We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, in a serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or compliments--did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was evidently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in by this time next year. It is but a grain of mustard seed, but the promised tree will grow swiftly if tended in a pure spirit; and the influence of good measures in any one place will be immediate in this province, as has been the case with every attempt in behalf of another sorrowing class, the insane.

While reading a notice of a successful attempt to have musical performances carried through in concert by the insane at Rouen, we were forcibly reminded of a similar performance we heard a few weeks ago at Sing Sing. There the female prisoners joined in singing a hymn, or rather choral, which describes the last thoughts of a spirit about to be enfranchised from the body; each stanza of which ends with the words, "All is well;" and they sang it--those suffering, degraded children of society--with as gentle and resigned an expression as if they were sure of going to sleep in the arms of a pure mother. The good spirit that dwelt in the music made them its own. And shall not the good spirit of religious sympathy make them its own also, and more permanently? We shall see. Should the _morally_ insane, by wise and gentle care, be won back to health, as the wretched bedlamites have been, will not the angels themselves give thanks? And will any man dare take the risk of opposing plans that afford even a chance of such a result?

Apart also from good that is public and many-voiced, does not each of us know, in private experience, much to be thankful for? Not only the innocent and daily pleasures that we have prized according to our wisdom; of the sun and starry skies, the fields of green, or snow scarcely less beautiful, the loaf eaten with an appetite, the glow of labor, the gentle signs of common affection; but have not some, have not many of us, cause to be thankful for enfranchisement from error or infatuation; a growth in knowledge of outward things, and instruction within the soul from a higher source. Have we not acquired a sense of more refined enjoyments; clear convictions; sometimes a serenity in which, as in the first days of June, all things grow, and the blossom gives place to fruit? Have we not been weaned from what was unfit for us, or unworthy our care? and have not those ties been drawn more close, and are not those objects seen more distinctly, which shall forever be worthy the purest desires of our souls? Have we learned to do any thing, the humblest, in the service and by the spirit of the power which meaneth all things well? If so, we may give thanks, and, perhaps, venture to offer our solicitations in behalf of those as yet less favored by circumstances. When even a few shall dare do so with the whole heart--for only a pure heart, can "avail much" in such prayers--then ALL shall soon be well.

CHRISTMAS.

Our festivals come rather too near together, since we have so few of them; thanksgiving, Christmas, new year's day,--and then none again till July. We know not but these four, with the addition of "a day set apart for fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and edification, as well as a calendar full of saints' days, if they were observed in a better spirit. But thanksgiving is devoted to good dinners; Christmas and new year's days, to making presents and compliments; fast day, to playing at cricket and other games; and the fourth of July, to boasting of the past, rather than to plans how to deserve its benefits and secure its fruits.

We value means of marking time by appointed days, because man, on one side of his nature so ardent and aspiring, is on the other so slippery and indolent a being, that he needs incessant admonitions to redeem the time. Time flows on steadily, whether he regards it or not; yet unless _he keep time_, there is no music in that flow. The sands drop with inevitable speed, yet each waits long enough to receive, if it be ready, the intellectual touch that should turn it to a sand of gold.

Time, says the Grecian fable, is the parent of Power; Power is the father of Genius and Wisdom; Time, then, is grandfather of the noblest of the human family, and we must respect the aged sire whom we see on the frontispiece of the almanacs, and believe his scythe was meant to mow down harvests ripened for an immortal use.

Yet the best provision made by the mind of society, at large, for these admonitions, soon loses its efficacy, and requires that individual earnestness, individual piety, should continually reanimate the most beautiful form. The world has never seen arrangements which might more naturally offer good suggestions, than those of the church of Rome. The founders of that church stood very near a history, radiant at every page with divine light. All their rites and ceremonial days illustrate facts of a universal interest. But the life with which piety, first, and afterwards the genius of great artists, invested these symbols, waned at last, except to a thoughtful few. Reverence was forgotten in the multitude of genuflections; the rosary became a string of beads, rather than a series of religious meditations, and "the glorious company of saints and martyrs" were not so much regarded as the teachers of heavenly truth, as intercessors to obtain for their votaries the temporal gifts they craved.

Yet we regret that some of these symbols had not been more reverenced by Protestants, as the possible occasion of good thoughts. And among others we regret that the day set apart to commemorate the birth of Jesus should have been stripped, even by those who observe it, of many impressive and touching accessories.

If ever there was an occasion on which the arts could become all but omnipotent in the service of a holy thought, it is this of the birth of the child Jesus. In the palmy days of the Catholic religion, they may be said to have wrought miracles in its behalf; and, in our colder time, when we rather reflect that light from a different point of view, than transport ourselves into it,--who, that has an eye and ear faithful to the soul, is not conscious of inexhaustible benefits from some of the works by which sublime geniuses have expressed their ideas in the adorations of the Magi and the Shepherds, in the Virgin with the infant Jesus, or that work which expresses what Christendom at large has not even begun to realize,--that work which makes us conscious, as we listen, why the soul of man was thought worthy and able to upbear a cross of such dreadful weight--the Messiah of Handel.

Christmas would seem to be the day peculiarly sacred to children, and something of this feeling here shows itself among us, though rather from German influence than of native growth. The evergreen tree is often reared for the children on Christmas evening, and its branches cluster with little tokens that may, at least, give them a sense that the world is rich, and that there are some in it who care to bless them. It is a charming sight to see their glittering eyes, and well worth much trouble in preparing the Christmas tree.

Yet, on this occasion as on all others, we could wish to see pleasure offered them in a form less selfish than it is. When shall we read of banquets prepared for the halt, the lame, and the blind, on the day that is said to have brought _their_ Friend into the world? When will the children be taught to ask all the cold and ragged little ones, whom they have seen during the day wistfully gazing at the displays in the shop-windows, to share the joys of Christmas eve?

We borrow the Christmas tree from Germany. Would that we might but borrow with it that feeling which pervades all their stories about the influence of the Christ child; and has, I doubt not,--for the spirit of literature is always, though refined, the essence of popular life,--pervaded the conduct of children there!

We will mention two of these as happily expressive of different sides of the desirable character. One is a legend of the Saint Hermann Joseph. The legend runs, that this saint, when a little boy, passed daily by a niche where was an image of the Virgin and Child, and delighted there to pay his devotions. His heart was so drawn towards the holy child, that, one day, having received what seemed to him a gift truly precious,--to wit, a beautiful red and yellow apple,--he ventured to offer it, with his prayer. To his unspeakable delight, the child put forth its hand and took the apple. After that day, never was a gift bestowed upon the little Hermann that was not carried to the same place. He needed nothing for himself, but dedicated all his childish goods to the altar.

After a while, grief comes. His father, who was a poor man, finds it necessary to take him from school and bind him to a trade. He communicates his woes to his friends of the niche, and the Virgin comforts him, like a mother, and bestows on him money, by means of which he rises, (not to ride in a gilt coach like Lord Mayor Whittington,) but to be a learned and tender shepherd of men.

Another still more touching story is that of the holy Rupert. Rupert was the only child of a princely house, and had something to give besides apples. But his generosity and human love were such, that, as a child, he could never see poor children suffering without despoiling himself of all he had with him in their behalf. His mother was, at first, displeased at this; but when he replied, "They are thy children too," her reproofs yielded to tears.

One time, when he had given away his coat to a poor child, he got wearied and belated on his homeward way. He lay down a while, and fell asleep. Then he dreamed that he was on a river shore, and saw a mild and noble old man bathing many children. After he had plunged them into the water, he would place them on a beautiful island, where they looked white and glorious as little angels. Rupert was seized with strong desire to join them, and begged the old man to bathe him, also, in the stream. But he was answered, "It is not yet time." Just then a rainbow spanned the island, and on its arch was enthroned the child Jesus, dressed in a coat that Rupert knew to be his own. And the child said to the others, "See this coat; it is one my brother Rupert has just sent to me. He has given us many gifts from his love; shall we not ask him to join us here?" And they shouted a musical "yes;" and the child started from his dream. But he had lain too long on the damp bank of the river, without his coat. A cold, and fever soon sent him to join the band of his brothers in their home.

These are legends, superstitions, will you say? But, in casting aside the shell, have we retained the kernel? The image of the child Jesus is not seen in the open street; does his spirit find other means to express itself there? Protestantism did not mean, we suppose, to deaden the spirit in excluding the form?

The thought of Jesus, as a child, has great weight with children who have learned to think of him at all. In thinking of him, they form an image of all that the morning of a pure and fervent life should be and bring. In former days I knew a boy artist, whose genius, at that time, showed high promise. He was not more than fourteen years old; a slight, pale boy, with a beaming eye. The hopes and sympathy of friends, gained by his talent, had furnished him with a studio and orders for some pictures. He had picked up from the streets a boy still younger and poorer than himself, to take care of the room and prepare his colors; and the two boys were as content in their relation as Michael Angelo with his Urbino. If you went there you found exposed to view many pretty pictures: a Girl with a Dove, the Guitar Player and such subjects as are commonly supposed to interest at his age. But, hid in a corner, and never, shown, unless to the beggar page, or some most confidential friend, was the real object of his love and pride, the slowly growing work of secret hours. The subject of this picture was Christ teaching the doctors. And in those doctors he had expressed all he had already observed of the pedantry and shallow conceit of those in whom mature years have not unfolded the soul; and in the child, all he felt that early youth should be and seek, though, alas! his own feet failed him on the difficult road. This one record of the youth of Jesus had, at least, been much to his mind.

In earlier days, the little saints thought they best imitated the Emanuel by giving apples and coats; but we know not why, in our age, that esteems itself so enlightened, they should not become also the givers of spiritual gifts. We see in them, continually, impulses that only require a good direction to effect infinite good. See the little girls at work for foreign missions; that is not useless. They devote the time to a purpose that is not selfish; the horizon of their thoughts is extended. But they are perfectly capable of becoming home missionaries as well. The principle of stewardship would make them so.

I have seen a little girl of thirteen,--who had much service, too, to perform, for a hard-working mother,--in the midst of a circle of poor children whom she gathered daily to a morning school. She took them from the door-steps and the ditches; she washed their hands and faces; she taught them to read and to sew; and she told them stories that had delighted her own infancy. In her face, though in feature and complexion plain, was something, already, of a Madonna sweetness, and it had no way eclipsed the gayety of childhood.

I have seen a boy scarce older, brought up for some time with the sons of laborers, who, so soon as he found himself possessed of superior advantages, thought not of surpassing others, but of excelling, and then imparting--and he was able to do it. If the other boys had less leisure, and could pay for less instruction, they did not suffer for it. He could not be happy unless they also could enjoy Milton, and pass from nature to natural philosophy. He performed, though in a childish way, and in no Grecian garb, the part of Apollo amid the herdsmen of Admetus.

The cause of education would be indefinitely furthered, if, in addition to formal means, there were but this principle awakened in the hearts of the young, that what they have they must bestow. All are not natural instructors, but a large proportion are; and those who do possess such a talent are the best possible teachers to those a little younger than themselves. Many have more patience with the difficulties they have lately left behind, and enjoy their power of assisting more than those farther removed in age and knowledge do.

Then the intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils, as they are sent him by their guardians. Here he need only choose those who have a predisposition for what he is best able to teach. And, as I would have the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the power that now lies latent.

If a girl, for instance, who has only a passable talent for music, but who, from the advantage of social position, has been able to gain thorough instruction, felt it her duty to teach whomsoever she knew that had such a talent, without money to cultivate it, the good is obvious.

Those who are learning receive an immediate benefit by an effort to rearrange and interpret what they learn; so the use of this justice would be twofold.

Some efforts are made here and there; nay, sometimes there are those who can say they have returned usury for every gift of fate. And, would others make the same experiments, they might find Utopia not so far off as the children of this world, wise in securing their own selfish ease, would persuade us it must always be.

We have hinted what sort of Christmas box we would wish for the children. It would be one full, as that of the child Christ must be, of the pieces of silver that were lost and are found. But Christmas, with its peculiar associations, has deep interest for men, and women too, no less. It has so in their mutual relations. At the time thus celebrated, a pure woman saw in her child what the Son of man should be as a child of God. She anticipated for him a life of glory to God, peace and good will to man. In every young mother's heart, who has any purity of heart, the same feelings arise. But most of these mothers let them go without obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other children--other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily demanded of him such a career.

And man looks upon woman, in this relation, always as he should. Does he see in her a holy mother worthy to guard the infancy of an immortal soul? Then she assumes in his eyes those traits which the Romish church loved to revere in Mary. Frivolity, base appetite, contempt are exorcised; and man and woman appear again in unprofaned connection, as brother and sister, the children and the servants of the one Divine Love, and pilgrims to a common aim.

Were all this right in the private sphere, the public would soon right itself also, and the nations of Christendom might join in a celebration, such as "kings and prophets waited for," and so many martyrs died to achieve, of Christ-Mass.

MARIANA[33]

Among those whom I met in a recent visit at Chicago was Mrs. Z., the aunt of an old schoolmate, to whom I impatiently hastened, to demand news of Mariana. The answer startled me. Mariana, so full of life, was dead. That form, the most rich in energy and coloring of any I had ever seen, had faded from the earth. The circle of youthful associations had given way in the part that seemed the strongest. What I now learned of the story of this life, and what was by myself remembered, may be bound together in this slight sketch.

At the boarding school to which I was too early sent, a fond, a proud, and timid child, I saw among the ranks of the gay and graceful, bright or earnest girls, only one who interested my fancy or touched my young heart; and this was Mariana. She was, on the father's side, of Spanish Creole blood, but had been sent to the Atlantic coast, to receive a school education under the care of her aunt, Mrs. Z.

This lady had kept her mostly at home with herself, and Mariana had gone from her house to a day school; but the aunt being absent for a time in Europe, she had now been unfortunately committed for some time to the mercies of a boarding school.

A strange bird she proved there--a lonely one, that could not make for itself a summer. At first, her schoolmates were captivated with her ways, her love of wild dances and sudden song, her freaks of passion and of wit. She was always new, always surprising, and, for a time, charming.

But, after a while, they tired of her. She could never be depended on to join in their plans, yet she expected them to follow out hers with their whole strength. She was very loving, even infatuated in her own affections, and exacted from those who had professed any love for her, the devotion she was willing to bestow.

Yet there was a vein of haughty caprice in her character; a love of solitude, which made her at times wish to retire entirely; and at these times she would expect to be thoroughly understood, and let alone, yet to be welcomed back when she returned. She did not thwart others in their humors, but she never doubted of great indulgence from them.

Some singular ways she had, which, when new, charmed, but, after acquaintance, displeased her companions. She had by nature the same habit and power of excitement that is described in the spinning dervishes of the East. Like them, she would spin until all around her were giddy, while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own; perform many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the scenes of her earlier childhood, her companions, and the dignitaries she sometimes saw, with fantasies unknown to life, unknown to heaven or earth.

This excitement, as may be supposed, was not good for her. It oftenest came on in the evening, and spoiled her sleep. She would wake in the night, and cheat her restlessness by inventions that teased, while they sometimes diverted her companions.

She was also a sleep-walker; and this one trait of her case did somewhat alarm her guardians, who, otherwise, showed the same profound stupidity, as to this peculiar being, usual in the overseers of the young. They consulted a physician, who said she would outgrow it, and prescribed a milk diet.

Meantime, the fever of this ardent and too early stimulated nature was constantly increased by the restraints and narrow routine of the boarding school. She was always devising means to break in upon it. She had a taste, which would have seemed ludicrous to her mates, if they had not felt some awe of her, from a touch of genius and power, that never left her, for costume and fancy dresses; always some sash twisted about her, some drapery, something odd in the arrangement of her hair and dress; so that the methodical preceptress dared not let her go out without a careful scrutiny and remodelling, whose soberizing effects generally disappeared the moment she was in the free air.

At last, a vent for her was found in private theatricals. Play followed play, and in these and the rehearsals she found entertainment congenial with her. The principal parts, as a matter of course, fell to her lot; most of the good suggestions and arrangements came from her, and for a time she ruled masterly and shone triumphant.

During these performances the girls had heightened their natural bloom with artificial red; this was delightful to them--it was something so out of the way. But Mariana, after the plays were over, kept her carmine saucer on the dressing table, and put on her blushes regularly as the morning.

When stared and jeered at, she at first said she did it because she thought it made her look prettier; but, after a while, she became quite petulant about it--would make no reply to any joke, but merely kept on doing it.

This irritated the girls, as all eccentricity does the world in general, more than vice or malignity. They talked it over among themselves, till they got wrought up to a desire of punishing, once for all, this sometimes amusing, but so often provoking nonconformist.

Having obtained the leave of the mistress, they laid, with great glee, a plan one evening, which was to be carried into execution next day at dinner.

Among Mariana's irregularities was a great aversion to the meal-time ceremonial. So long, so tiresome she found it, to be seated at a certain moment, to wait while each one was served at so large a table, and one where there was scarcely any conversation; from day to day it became more heavy to her to sit there, or go there at all. Often as possible she excused herself on the ever-convenient plea of headache, and was hardly ever ready when the dinner bell rang.

To-day it found her on the balcony, lost in gazing on the beautiful prospect. I have heard her say, afterwards, she had rarely in her life been so happy--and she was one with whom happiness was a still rapture. It was one of the most blessed summer days; the shadows of great white clouds empurpled the distant hills for a few moments only to leave them more golden; the tall grass of the wide fields waved in the softest breeze. Pure blue were the heavens, and the same hue of pure contentment was in the heart of Mariana.

Suddenly on her bright mood jarred the dinner bell. At first rose her usual thought, I will not, cannot go; and then the _must_, which daily life can always enforce, even upon the butterflies and birds, came, and she walked reluctantly to her room. She merely changed her dress, and never thought of adding the artificial rose to her cheek.

When she took her seat in the dining hall, and was asked if she would be helped, raising her eyes, she saw the person who asked her was deeply rouged, with a bright, glaring spot, perfectly round, in either cheek. She looked at the next--the same apparition! She then slowly passed her eyes down the whole line, and saw the same, with a suppressed smile distorting every countenance. Catching the design at once she deliberately looked along her own side of the table, at every schoolmate in turn; every one had joined in the trick. The teachers strove to be grave, but she saw they enjoyed the joke. The servants could not suppress a titter.

When Warren Hastings stood at the bar of Westminster Hall; when the Methodist preacher walked through a line of men, each of whom greeted him with a brickbat or a rotten egg,--they had some preparation for the crisis, and it might not be very difficult to meet it with an impassive brow. Our little girl was quite unprepared to find herself in the midst of a world which despised her, and triumphed in her disgrace.

She had ruled like a queen in the midst of her companions; she had shed her animation through their lives, and loaded them with prodigal favors, nor once suspected that a powerful favorite might not be loved. Now, she felt that she had been but a dangerous plaything in the hands of those whose hearts she never had doubted.

Yet the occasion found her equal to it; for Mariana had the kind of spirit, which, in a better cause, had made the Roman matron truly say of her death wound, "It is not painful, Poetus." She did not blench--she did not change countenance. She swallowed her dinner with apparent composure. She made remarks to those near her as if she had no eyes.

The wrath of the foe of course rose higher, and the moment they were freed from the restraints of the dining room, they all ran off, gayly calling, and sarcastically laughing, with backward glances, at Mariana, left alone.

She went alone to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the floor in strong convulsions. These had sometimes threatened her life, as a child, but of later years she had outgrown them. School hours came, and she was not there. A little girl, sent to her door, could get no answer. The teachers became alarmed, and broke it open. Bitter was their penitence and that of her companions at the state in which they found her. For some hours terrible anxiety was felt; but at last, Nature, exhausted, relieved herself by a deep slumber.

From this Mariana rose an altered being. She made no reply to the expressions of sorrow from her companions, none to the grave and kind, but undiscerning comments of her teacher. She did not name the source of her anguish, and its poisoned dart sunk deeply in. It was this thought which stung her so.--"What, not one, not a single one, in the hour of trial, to take my part! not one who refused to take part against me!" Past words of love, and caresses little heeded at the time, rose to her memory, and gave fuel to her distempered thoughts. Beyond the sense of universal perfidy, of burning resentment, she could not get. And Mariana, born for love, now hated all the world.