sed took
place on the 25th of December, in the year ONE. They sing psalms, and
preach sermons, and offer prayers, and make a famous holiday. But the
greater part of the people think only of the festival, and very little
of the noble boy who was born so long ago in a tavern-barn in Judea. And
of all the ministers who talk so much about the old Christ, there are
not many who would welcome a new man who should come and do for this
age the great service which Jesus did for his own time. But, as on the
Fourth of July, slaveholders, and border ruffians, and kidnappers, and
men who believe there is no higher law, ring their bells, and fire their
cannons, and let off their rockets, making more noise than all those
who honor and defend the great Principles of Humanity which make
Independence Day famous,--so on Christmas, not only religious people,
but Scribes, and Pharisees, and Hypocrites make a great talk about
"Christ and him crucified;" when, if a man of genius for religion were
now to appear, they would be the first to call out "Infidel!" "Infidel!"
and would kill him if it were possible or safe.

Well, one rainy Sunday evening, in 1855, just twelve days before
Christmas, in the little town of Soitgoes, in Worcester County, Mass.,
Aunt Kindly and Uncle Nathan were sitting in their comfortable parlor
before a bright wood-fire. It was about eight o'clock, a stormy night;
now it snowed a little, then it rained, then snowed again, seeming as if
the weather was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made
up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney,
and started out of her sleep a great tortoise-shell cat, that lay on
the rug which Aunt Kindly had made for her. Tabby opened her yellow eyes
suddenly, and erected her _smellers_, but finding it was only the wind
and not a mouse that made the noise, she stretched out a great paw and
yawned, and then cuddled her head down so as to show her white throat,
and went to sleep again.

Uncle Nathan and Aunt Kindly were brother and sister. He was a little
more than sixty, a fine, hale, hearty-looking, handsome man as you could
find in a summer's day, with white hair and a thoughtful, benevolent
face, adorned with a full beard as white as his venerable head. Aunt
Kindly was five-and-forty or thereabouts; her face a little sad when you
looked at it carelessly in its repose, but commonly it seemed cheerful,
full of thought and generosity, and handsome w