, as I have said, they
dropped Christmas, set their faces against steeples, turned their altars
into cherry-wood communion tables, clad their souls in iron, and New
England was purified from the dross of the Old World.

This is why Christmas amounts to nothing among us.

New England has always been an independent part of the United States.
The footprints of the Puritans are not quite worn out yet, and in
turning our back on saints and such, we have nigh about forgotten that
our part of the country had anything to be thankful for, except a fine
grain harvest and abounding hay crop.

Well, not knowing much about Christmas, sisters, you will be glad to
hear something about Easter, which comes at the end of Lent, and is a
time of rejoicing in this city, I can tell you. Let me explain:

Lent is a wonderful still time among the church people who are given to
fish and eggs, and morning service for weeks and weeks while it lasts.
But the last three days are what I want to tell you about; for during
the time when hard-boiled eggs are so much the fashion, Cousin E. E. and
myself were in Washington, where people rest a little from parties, and
eat a good many oysters in a serious way, but could no more get up a
regular Easter jubilee than they could tell where the money goes to that
ought to build up the Washington monument, but don't.

No; Cousin E. E., who keeps getting higher and higher in her church
notions, was determined to spend her Easter at home.

"Easter! what does that mean?" I seem to hear you say. "Is it a woman,
or was it named after one? Is it--"

Stop, sisters, that question is too much for me; I don't know. Wasn't
there a handsome woman of the Jewish persuasion who put on her good
clothes and came round the king, her husband, when her relations were
all kept out of office, or something of that kind? Perhaps this Easter
is named after her; but then it seems to me as if the names weren't just
the same. Anyway, the three days they call Easter mean a solemn thing
that we haven't thought enough of in our parts, up to this time.

It means those three days when our Lord lay in the tomb. The first day,
sisters, is held in remembrance of a death that was meant to make men
holy. That was suffered for you and me. It is called Good Friday, and a
great many people in these parts hold it as the most solemn day of all
the year. I think it is. My own heart bows itself in dumb reverence as
the thought of all it means settl