398 



DECEMBER. 



neficence equally conspicuous in every object of 

 creation, whether a world or an atom, come to 

 our aid, to reassure our confidence, and to ani- 

 mate us with the proud prospect of an eternity 

 of still perfecting and ennobling existence. 



But the year draws to a close. I see symp- 

 toms of its speedy exit. I see holly and missle- 

 toe in the market, in every house that I visit, 

 iir every window that I pass, except in those of 

 the Society of Friends, who, though they like 

 old fashions, pay little regard to old customs, 

 but treat, them as the "beggarly elements" of 

 worn-out superstitions. They are philosophi- 

 cally right, but poetically wrong. I see the 

 apprentice boys going along the streets, from 

 house to house, distributing those little annual 

 remembrances called Christmas-bills; and my 

 imagination follows these tyroes in trade, who 

 now fill its lowest offices, and would think more 

 of a slide or a mince-pie than of all the 

 " wealth in Lunnun bank," through a few more 

 years, and beholds them metamorphosed into 

 grave, important, and well-to-do citizens ; or, as 

 it may chance to them, shrunk into the thin^ 

 shrivelled, and grasshopper-like beings that care 

 and disappointment convert men into. And 

 this awakes in me the consciousness of how 



