grey church, surrounded by its graves, looks the patriarch of the village, as it is. You see troops of young and old, coming along the field-paths, tripping over the stiles, and exchanging their cordial greetings near the ivy-covered church-porch, underneath which many generations have preceded them in the long bygone Christmas days.

But, in great towns and cities too, Christmas is held gloriously. See the stage-coaches come rolling in from the country, piled high with game, hares and pheasants; and the long railway trains, heavy with Christmas geese and turkeys, and country buns, and all manner of presents from kind relatives. What grocers' and confectioners' windows, filled with Christmas delicacies! and what butchers' stalls, full of haunches of venison and huge pieces of jolly Christmas beef, all bedizened with holly and laurel! Then, the crowded streets, full of Christmas folks in their best attire; the pouring swarms greeting each other cordially. The mighty heart of London beats to its core with the warm tide of Christmas feeling; the very back alleys of our great metropolis are for a time illumined by its warmth, and even the chilly regions of Belgravia thaw and melt under its genial influences. And then the theatres and the pantomimes! Oh what a treat is there for the holiday youngsters! How eager they are to be at the doors in time, and enjoy the envied luxury of a front seat! How impatient they are till the clown makes his appearance, and with what shouts and huzzas they greet him! they relish the endless puddings which he stows away in his nether garments, and the cuffs and thwacks which he gives and takes, ringing their little palms together in an ecstacy of delight. And then there is the nightly cleverness and eternal movement of harlequin, the beautiful dancing of columbine, the blunders of blockhead pantaloon and all the clever tricks which are performed at his stupid expense, constituting a perfect round of vivacity, drollery, motion, life, and animal spirits, such as it almost makes an old man young again to look upon.

How

high destiny. Let us now endeavour each to realize the beautiful belief of old, that no evil spirit had power over man at this season. Let us exhibit the influence of this faith in our innocent joy, and cheerfulness, and charity, and heart-felt love.

"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS DEATH."

"There's no such thing as death"
To those who think aright,
'Tis but the racer casting off
What most impedes his flight;
"Tis but one little act,

Life's drama must contain;
One struggle keener than the rest,
And then, an end of pain.
"There's no such thing as death"-
That which is thus miscalled,
Is life escaping from the chains
That have so long enthralled;
"Tis a once hidden star,

Piercing the clouds of night,
To shine in gentle radiance forth,
Amidst its kindred light.
"There's no such thing as death”-
In nature, nothing dies;
From each sad remnant of decay
Some forms of life arise.
The faded leaf that falls

All sere and brown to earth,
Ere long will mingle with the shapes
That give the floweret birth.

"There's no such thing as death;"

'Tis but the blossom-spray,
Sinking before the coming fruit,
That seeks the summer ray;
'Tis but the bud displaced,

As comes the perfect flower;
'Tis faith exchanged for sight,
And weariness for power.

CHARLOTTE YOUNG.

WHAT IS POETRY?

But it is not Christmas in England alone. It is the grand festival of Christendom. The sound of the Christmas bells echoes from the remote east to the far west; from the wildernesses of Asia to the prairies of America. It travels over mountain chains, through unknown woods, and across bounding seas. From land to land the glad sound is taken up, and as it dies in one country it rises in the next, and is carried westward with the sun. The merry bells of Christmas circle the earth, and their brazen welcome is the universal THIS question has been asked in all ages, and its many language of the season. The dwellers in our remotest answers have puzzled most honest persons so much that colonies remember them of the old Christmas at home- they give it up as a matter beyond their comprehension, of the family meetings from which they are now so far made only for the double-distilled essence of humanity removed-of the village chimes, and the old church-existing amongst a few refined spirits, whose sphere lies porch, and the cheerful English fireside crowded around somewhere very far out of the earthy tabernacle inhabited with happy faces; and their hearts are stirred by old by "common clay." loves, old feelings, old memories, sad, yet healthful to think on. But they enjoy their Christmas too, far away in India, or in their log hut amid the Australian bush, or on the Western Prairie; and they drink to friends at home with a hearty good-will.

Not the least glory of Christmas is that it keeps alive among us the memory of the Great Lover of mankind, for on that day was born the divinest heart that ever walked this earth. We are transported to the fields of Bethlehem, and the song which was sung by the angels to the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. Dim centuries stretch between that epoch and this, yet the song of the angels still resounds among men ; it continues to echo the "tidings of great joy to all mankind." The ages have rolled on, and carried the ark of Christianity on their bosom; sweeping over the temples of the heathen gods and the altars of the Druids, and freighted with an increasing store of life and love from age to age. With thankfulness and joy, therefore, we hail our Christmastime, which reminds us of our great privileges, and of our

Poetry is the life of nature; we could not live without it; and, therefore, it is right that none-the most simple, or even brutal-should imagine it belongs not to them. When I speak thus, I mean those simple elements of which poetry makes the glorious compound; the ideas of comparison and harmony, for these I take to be the first principles of poetry, whatever else is embodied with them. Memory is a powerful agent in the vital elixir of poetry. What mother that has lost an infant in the bloom of its beauty, has not recalled its image to her mind; thought of it, and fancied a resemblance between it and some other child, or some lovely picture? And why does she look on such child with interest, and seek eagerly to hang the picture on her wall? It is the memory of her love; but more-it is the power of the imagination, by which she can see, in that which is present, the image of that which is not.

Why does the poor man love, on the quiet Sabbath, a walk in the fields? Whence springs the exclamation, even from business man and labourer, What a fine day;

I am glad of it?" These are indications that the har-
mony of light and form is pleasing to the mind, which,
involuntarily, feels and enjoys it.
horses love the sunshine; and to man, who can compre-
The very dogs and
hend a wider range of beauty, it brings happiness and
peace. Man never feels lonely in the sunshine, because
his mind grows full; the scene around awakens a world
of comparison, and he sees and thinks more of Nature's
relationship.

Poetry is a stage of natural education. It is awakened
by what is mysterious and unknown, and by the heart's
yearnings to pierce this mystery; and thus, to express
its impressions thereof, it flies to comparison with some-
thing familiar; it sees the connecting links of creation,
and binds great things with small.
poetry is truth; it is, to the growing mind, the electric
Therefore, this
stream which flows through 'God's great universe.
teacher, in explaining to his pupil something new, illus-
The
trates it with the well-known objects and incidents of the
pupil's life, because the mind seeks comparison, to know
a great many results by a few principles-to picture the
image of what is unknown in that which is familiar.
What more beautiful embodiment of a child's idea,
opening to it the path of rising thought, than the old,
but exquisite verse-

on,

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!"

Here is poetry springing out of wonder, beauty, and association. This poetry has a holy office: it seeks to point out the real position and relationship of all things in nature. When the poet said, "Night put her mantle and pinned it with a star," we saw at once a picture, we saw the boundless space, with its rolling worlds, far more strikingly than by a calculation of miles in millions. And when God's prophet declared that, the hills in a balance; He measureth the waters in the "He weigheth hollow of his hand;" he brought before our awe-struck minds this little earth as it is, amid the vast creation springing from that "light unapproachable," which made and guardeth all; as an almost imperceptible ray of the glory of His work. And when a modern bard said that the sun's most gorgeous light shed on the leafless hills, was But his living shadow there," what a glorious idea of the immortal One rises in the mind. this height of poetic fancy; we see the same elements in But pass we the joke, the song, the simple description by which we place each other in the scenes where we have been: the power is merely directed by the character and education of the individual. However coarse the spontaneous comparison may be, it is an idea.

66

115

East which guides us on to where lies cradled the form
of happiness-as simple as a little child.

yet full-lighted, but shall go on, guiding human life with
Yet, inasmuch as poetry is the lamp to truth, it is not
clearer flame until Time shall be no more.
the culminating point of this great life-intricacy; pointing
clearly to where the simple principles of glorious mor-
It stands on
tality burn fixed and holy; and by this light alone we
read them.
E. M. S..

WHICH IS RIGHT?
I.

many months, yet you refuse me one kiss as a remem-
"THOUGH I may not see you again, dear Mary, for
brance?"

let any one kiss me again."
"Oh! I am a great girl now, Edward, and shall not

ought not this to be my authority? You know I am
But I have known you from such a little child,
your old friend, and am sorry to part from you without
a token of your friendship."

"Well, but I am a great girl, and I ought not." Edward Morgan was about to leave the village of to enter upon a situation in London, and the above dialogue took place between him and Mary Warner, on the evening before his departure; for he would leave in was a young man of nineteen or twenty years of age, the morning before the household were up. and had known Mary Warner since she was a child of Edward ten years. be called handsome, had an expression of sweet sensiShe was now fourteen, and though not to tiveness and of quiet good-temper, plainly marked in her face.

To attempt to reason was useless, and with a heart too at the one boon denied him, and bidding her good-by, full to talk, Edward could but faintly express his sorrow retired to his chamber, concealing his grief as best he might.

fant, and compelled by circumstances, went to live with Mary Warner lost her father when she was but an inher kind old grandmother. affectionate disposition, a fond love sprang up between them; and the pain of separation, when in her tenth Being naturally a child of mutually severe to grandmother and child. But with the year, she came to live with, and assist her mother, was happy nature of children, love soon transports itself: the affections must find a resting-place, the soul needs a confidant, and who can claim so strong a right as a mother? It was at her home that Edward Morgan first Imagination means a combining of the atoms of things sensitive nature, he had witnessed with unconscious saw the child. Himself very young, and of a warmly we know, into new forms, so as to present an image. sympathy, the playful simplicity of little Mary, and had The story and the pun spring from this same source; its been to her a tried friend as " course is shaped by our sentiments, our passions, our love of the exuberant overflow of kisses which the pure heart of grave or gay, sublime or severe, embodied by the of a child lavishes upon any one it loves. The calls of jumper," or the recipient power of language. The poet's passions may not be business often separated the young friends, months instronger than other men's; but his perceptions are, tervened between their seeing each other, but scarcely altogether, more highly strung. He has seen deeper into any alteration took place in the simple delight of reNature's secret; and the delicacy of his reflection is shed newed meetings. on all he touches, and gilds all thought and feeling moments of unconscious love are the dearest in our And oh! who will deny that these with a magic beauty, which startles minds less finely lives, when the satisfaction of present happiness leaves wrought. The poet's quick imagination joins one object no void, suffers no hope to intrude, but is true enjoywith another, owns their relation to those intangible ment, innocent rapture. ideas which move in his own brain; and, 'twixt first comes home to us, we are from that moment subWhen conviction that we love spirit and matter, he weaves a glorious combinatin,ject to fear and hope; the present becomes only the whose result is perfect beauty; and beauty comes alone road to a future, and is impatiently endured. Anxiety of truth-it is perfection-it is God's own making; and, lends its aid to fever us with its promptings, and we in knowing nature, we know the full harmony of then feel the pains of love, as before we enjoyed its God. between the boy and girl is of the holiest nature, and pleasures. For the love spontaneously springing up partakes of the passivity of the purest feeling.

Poetry belongs to the youth of the mind, it is the illustration by which we know the unknown; the silken cord which draws us up to Heaven; the steady star in the

"A great girl, and ought not," repeated Edward as he

would be to me, a widow, with so little to depend on, will sing in his stead, and makes no more of doing so than if it were nothing; only saying that my Joe is good to them in their poverty, and there's a deal o' sore poverty behind that brass plate I rub up so brightly every morning, and that as she intends singing 'afore folks to get bread, she may as well make a beginning.'

Thus hurriedly imparting some of the facts of Mary Locksley's history, Mrs. Nippit ushered the young girl into the organist's chamber, where old Adam too moved by this act of earnest goodness, and her winning and bidding his clean robed choristers follow in a band, led her to the new trimmed organ-loft, and commenced the same grand anthem he had played before.

And lo! as he played on, and the lads' voices fell one by one in unison, and were gathered up into a whole, crowned by the silvery sweetness of the young girl's notes, it seemed, as if all the charities which had been thought or done within, or buried with the countless human dust of that old place, were born anew in angel shape and lineament, with power, thus sweetly to tell human hearts, "We are the CHARITIES which survive all time and change, and this our night of angel congregate and festival; so, as the Egyptian Wise Men brought priceless gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh, add to our angel numbers round the altar of another year."

another little staircase, and entered a long, low room, evidently his home, by the quaint signs of habitation seen around. But few of such signs were to be seen in their ordinary condition, for Adam beheld his room in somewhat such a state as the pedagogue immortalized by Wilkie, his village school; for some half-score or more of his choristers having assembled, according to annual custom, had commenced thus early the licence of Christmas-eve; for such two or three as had as yet put on the clean surplices which a tall, mystic sort of female, habited in a cloak and pattens, and a remarkable shadowy bonnet, was delivering to them one by one out of a washing-childish manner, to say much, took up the candle, basket, were either imitating the parson or the clerk, or else Adam himself; whilst the rest were peeping into the closets, making free with the old man's chair, scraping on his fiddle, and blowing on his flute, perfectly regardless of Mrs. Nippit's strenuous "hish," or more special reminder, "that they should be on their behaviours, for they knew as well as she did that Mr. Adam had weak nerves." Yet they no more heeded her than they did Mr. Adam himself, but kept on with their tricks of wild fun; strumming and humming even when they knew he stood there, though the moment he spoke and said, "Well my lads, I hope you are in voice, for this is Christmas-eve, "it was beautiful to behold with what docility and evident affection they instantly crowded round him. "Well, there's the hard part of it, Sir," said Mrs. Nippit, as putting on the surplice of the last little chorister, she took up the candle and led the way to the curious old fire-place, "for ye see my Tim is ill, and could no more sing than a crow, as the bandage round his neck is jist two flannel petticoats and a waistcoat, to say nothing of the worsted stocking underneath; whilst he's already had three treacle possets, as hot as could be." "Why, bless my heart," exclaimed the old man, forgetful in his distress of his own abundant sympathy for the honest Nippits in general, and Tim in particular, for the lad, though the quaintest and most old-fashioned in existence, had the voice of an angel, "why-why-I could have spared any lad but Tim, for his is the voice in alto-and but why did you bring the lad out-you're surely mad, Betsey Nippit." For veritably Tim Nippit sat here beside the fire in the organist's largest chair, not only wrapped in all the amazing amount of flannel his mother had spoken of, but also in an old watchman's coat she had borrowed, a huge comfortable, a pair of mittens, and a woollen cap tied strongly beneath the chin; whilst at the very instant of this communication he was sipping a little of the before mentioned posset, which she had brought with her in a jug, and had now made scaldinghot over the organist's fire.

"Why, Sir, to let you see with your own eyes that Tim's cold aint make-believe, as on course you should, as have been sich a father to him. But don't take on, Sir-I have got a woice for you-as 'll sing-ay, Siras you don't often hear."

And so these Christmas angels thus spoke on of love and duty, charity and care, till the old anthem was played out; and then descending to the church where Mrs. Nippit waited with a candle to light them, and followed by his little band of choristers, the old man reverently led the young girl out by a little door into the snowy streets, scarcely speaking, but hurrying her onward like one in full anxiety to hear her sing again.

They had not far to go; but at the distance of a few hundred yards they turned from the crowded thoroughfare into a clean flag-paved court, usually very still, for it only led to a range of warehouses and a small grassplot of a city garden; but now it bore the aspect and bustle of a fair, for at the further part people were gathered round or passing to, and through, what seemed a wide kitchen door; whilst at this end nearest the great city thoroughfare, old men and younger men, like clerks and ancient friends, were entering through a wide hall door beld open for them by a servant. Up the broad house-steps to this door, Adam Peters led the girl, and followed by the choristers, across the richly wainscoted hall, another servant ushered them into a large and grand old room at its extremity, where down each side of a very long dining table were those who had passed in; whilst at the upper end sat four old gentlemen, between them an elderly gentlewoman with very silver hair, and on the long table itself stood two enormous punch-bowls of magnificent china, above which massive silver candelabra of antique workmanship branched out with many lights. As the party evidently waited for the old musician and the choristers' arrival, Adam Peters passed up the room, and merely staying to apologize, as briefly as might be, for detaining them, to the most burly and complacent of the four complacent old gentlemen, sat down at once to one of those small organs, drawn up beside a screen, which require no aid from bellows. As soon as he had ranged his little band of singers round him, a bell was rung, and in came shortly divers servants in gay caps and looking very red and hot, and bringing in with them quite an odour of candied-peel, and nutmeg, and lemon, and oranges, and elder wine, and with these old men and younger ones, clad as warehousemen and porters. Those "Mr. Adam," whispered Mrs. Nippit, pressing rather assembled and silence once more restored, old Peters forward before her company, "his is the sweet young touched the antique ebon organ, and the notes, flowing one lady from where my Joe lives, Mr. Locksley's, the doctor, into the other, presently, so did the lads' rich voices, till in the next street, and she, knowing my trouble about crowned by the sweet one of the girl, all hearts prayed with Tim, and the loss Mr. Drayton's Christmas guinea, the anthem for the past blessings of the fading year, and

"It won't do," said the old man, despondingly, "even if it did, it would want training. For there are few like Tim's, and so the Christmas Angels of so many years

must

He said no more, for Betsey Nippit, who had the minute before disappeared down the little winding staircase, with the candle the old man had brought from the organ-loft, now returned, reverently lighting up a young girl very plainly dressed, followed by a lad the very counterpart of Tim, only that he was clad in a page's attire, that is to say, a suit of invisible green, profusely decorated in its upper regions with a vast amount of sugar-loaf buttons.