The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-02-19


lures, there was none to whose love she could
lay claim, save to one only, and he a poor
degraded inebriate, and her father. She
thought of the happy Eve and the still
more happy Morn that would dawn upon
her school mates with its Christmas pres
ents and gathered friends, and contrasted
them with her own scanty board and des-
olate hearth. TWAS not alwsys thus; once
she had home as happy as theirs, and
parents as tender and dear. Sorrows
crown OF sorrow is remembering happier
things" Her tears now fell thick and fast
and blinded her 80 that she could not see
her work, and with moan of pain she
clasped her hands over her poor, desolate,
aching heart.
The out-burst of feeling soon passed
away and looking up through her tears,
her eyes fell upon q little picture hanging
over the chimney piece. It was once her
sabbath-school teacher had given her, rep
resenting the Saviour toiling up Calvary's
hill and carrying his cross. The face was
turned to partial view, and O, that look
upon the God Mans face! Never before
had she seen it as now, SO full of love and
pity, blended with patient suffering, be-
meath the grcvious cross that was bending
Him to the earth. And if He bore that
cross with SO much patient endurance,
should she murmur at hers2 And this
was Christmas too. o, she might have hers
yet! No earthly power could keep her
from it-neither poverty, nor shame, nor
want, were able. She had been associating
the idea with the meeting of friends, and
feasting, and merry making, and had muir
INJURED in sinful RIGHTEOUSNESS because these
were denied her but here was love bet
ter than that of father or mother, and as
free for her as for the monarch on his
throne. 1t had been offered all the years
OF her life, and as long had she sighted
it. And was it not the very thing she
needed-the only thing that can really fill
the cravings of an unsatsfied soul9
Seek not to further pierce the mysteries
of that Audience Chamber. Leave the
penitent there alone, beneath the pitying
eye of her Saviour, with the red sunset rays
falling around her-material and spiritual
type and herald of to- morrow's Golden
Day. a.M
"For unto you is born shis day IN the city
OF David Saviour which is Christ the
Lord"
Sounding down the lapse of eighteen
hundred years, the angels tidings have
come to US, and the rejoicing world re-ech-
oes back the anthem, ''Glory to God in the
highest and on earth peace, good will to.
wards men," The Christmas chimes rang
clearly out on the still frosty air, arousing
the sleeping villagers to greet the opening
Day. Hetty Reed sprsng from her bed
and booked out at the stars, and they ap-
peared to her vocal with praise, and oil
pointing together in luminous index to
where the Young Child lay.
1t was the hour for early Christmas SER
vice. She had never gone in her life, but
now her whole inner being was carrying
her that way; so hurrying on her clothes
and holding her thin shawl tightly about
her, she set forth, unmindful Of the keen
frosty air, her feet keeping guick.-step
to the little church, and she entered the
sacred portals with noiseless and reverent
footsteps. The church was in semi-dark-
ness, being dimly and softly lighted by
few shaded lamps; and the adornings of
evergreen, and the figures of the worship
ers cast strange, fantastic shadows upon the
walls The scene was new to Hetty, and
sweet as new. How solemn, how impress
sive was the hour and the occasion. Never
since she was child had she experienced
SO sweet rest. Only yesterday she had
peered wistfully into her little looking glass,
to see if there remained one trace of the
freshness and bloom of youth. She felt 80
old and weary, but now, the WEAKNESS was
gone, and her soul seemed to rise on more
than eagles wings high up above the clouds
of earth, and at the same time so softened
and subdued, and melted into tenderness
and tears.
How mean, how worthless appeared all the
wealth and pleasures of this poor world
She cared not for these things now, and
though she knew she still had her daily
weight of cares, and her daily cross to bear,
yet she could do it cheerfully, for the sake
of Him who bore greater one for her.
The choir pealed out the glad exulting
anthem, and the subdued and fervent pray
ers assembled to Heaven like the sweet in
cense offered in the Most Holy Place.
Hetty's heart overfiowed in the fallness of
its emotions, and verify it seemed as if He
who was gone had come again and was
standing in the midst.
She had passed from the Audience Cham
Der into the sanctum sanctorum - the
Hottest of Holes, and from the radiance of
the bright but fading beams of the natural
sun, into the perpetual and glorious light of
the holy Shekinah-the Day STAR of
souls, whose Light is Heaven.
--.S-~-
k3v The following singular facts has