companied its announcement. They gradually increase in
fervour and pathos during the season of Advent, until they break forth
in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and good-will to men.
I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to
hear the full choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem
in a cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant
harmony.

[Illustration]

It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from days of yore, that
this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion of
peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together of
family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of kindred
hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are
continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the children of a
family who have launched forth in life, and wandered widely asunder,
once more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that rallying-place of
the affections, there to grow young and loving again among the endearing
mementoes of childhood.

[Illustration]

There is something in the very season of the year that gives a charm to
the festivity of Christmas. At other times we derive a great portion of
our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. Our feelings sally
forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny landscape, and we "live
abroad and everywhere." The song of the bird, the murmur of the stream,
the breathing fragrance of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer,
the golden pomp of autumn; earth with its mantle of refreshing green,
and heaven with its deep delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, all
fill us with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of
mere sensation. But in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled
of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn for
our gratifications to moral sources. The dreariness and desolation of
the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome nights, while they
circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our feelings also from rambling
abroad, and make us more keenly disposed for the pleasures of the social
circle. Our thoughts are more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more
aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and
are brought more closely together by dependence on each other for
enjoyment. Heart calleth unto heart; and we draw our pleasures from the
deep wells of