e is a veil covering the unseen world which not the
strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men
that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love,
romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal
beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world
there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand
years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he
will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

* * * * *

O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM

PHILLIPS BROOKS

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.

For Christ is born of Mary,
And, gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
Oh, come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

* * * * *

THE GLAD EVANGEL

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

When the Child of Nazareth was born, the sun, according to the Bosnian
legend, "leaped in the heavens, and the stars around it danced. A peace
came over mountain and forest. Even the rotten stump stood straight and
healthy on the green hill-side. The grass was beflowered with open
blossoms, incense sweet as myrrh pervaded upland and forest, birds sang
on the mountain top, and all gave thanks to the great God."

It is naught but an old folk-tale, but it has truth hidden at its heart,
for a strange, subtle force, a spirit of genial good-will, a new-born
kindness, seem to animate child and man ali