S’vJTV 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1879. 
No. 96. Price 12 Cents. 
By Adams & Bishop, 
and open wide the gates of gold that never more 
shall shut. 
Where shall he found the heart, in all earth’s 
struggling millions, that shall not heat with gladder 
throb that it is Christmas ? Is there anywhere in 
any dark mine or cold prison one that shall not 
- " -i catch a gleam of 
the holy light, or 
some distant echo 
sion of the Hebrew prophet, “ the hidings of God’s 
power.” We are conscious of reserved force, in the 
cold and silent air. The tempests linger awhile 
in their northern caves, but we are sure that they 
remain coucliant, ready for a spring. Are they 
checked by the echoes of seraph music, by the glory 
“ A stern discipline pervades all nature which is a 
little cruel that it may be very kind.” 
—Herbert Spencer. 
The shadows of the closing year are gathering 
about us. Once — 
more the circle 
of the months 
draws to its com- |k . ,, 
pleteness, and 
the season ol ^ ’ (j 
storms heralds its 
a p preach by days 
of gloom and N - Vijfe - |g| 
nights of cold. 3feS§ls| ■ , 
The natural 
w orld is wrapped 
in silent trance, ~ /"’ j wJ 
but not in the JP®j gpjHo V ' ) ■ 
silence of death. 
“ Nature knows 
no pause in pro- 
gress and de- ' I! 
velopniient,” says * 
the great master, c^SjgjpagBa sip J 
who studied well w 
her secrets. The . 
winter storm is 
as necessary to .1 
the strength of tflS 
the oak as the 
of the angel’s 
x■' song? If there 
is such a spot, 
Christian faith 
,r t, fcflpr 
a ^ a\.* UlSi^ and Christian 
charity should 
blush that it 
' S should ie. 
A ’’ ^^SSjaST' A w . In our own 
land more and 
more, we are 
coming to feel 
gf £ tender influences 
■ Vj -that w ill not suf- 
^wWMwliM BK > fer any soul to 
^ . x v\ 
: eat the Clirist- 
mas least alone. 
" 8 Everywhere gen- 
I tie charities car- 
' r 5 j ry the bread of 
S love to cheerless 
I homes and hun- 
I gry hearts. At 
Christmas, if 
ever 
women feel that 
they are all akin, 
-•* and put away 
from them “ that abomination called condescen¬ 
sion.” The rich and the poor meet together, 
with some faint realization that the Lord is the 
maker of them all. The rich go among the poor 
with sympathies all awake, remembering the Babe 
of the manger, “ who, though he was rich, for our 
men 
A Christmas in Elfland, 
mil covers ‘ the unrisen wheat ” and secures the pro-! of the light from upper skies that floods Judeeu 
mise ot the coming harvest. In every bough lies im-j plains ? Truly December needs not the cheer of 
prisr.ied, in “galleries dark,”the living sap that with summer flowers or autumn splendor; there is a 
returning spring shall fashion into beauty leaf and warmth and light throbbing through all the pulses 
bough and fragrant blossom. Mighty sleeping forces, of the world. Hope and love beat back with 
unseen hut eternal, remind us of the sublime expres- shining wings the frigid darkness of wrong and woe. 
