You see, dear, good gentlemen, you must not be angry if I'm almost

sorry it is Christmas. I know everybody ought to be happy when

Christmas comes; and I saw a good many little boys and girls to-day as

happy as I used to be, for I've been watching them through a little

peep hole I scratched on the frosty window-pane, and it didn't seem

real that they should be down there so happy, wishing each other

"Merry Christmas," and I up here all alone, mourning in my heart. But

you see what has done it all.

Do you think, dear, good gentlemen, that there are any other "Little

Sunbeams" like me? Do you think there are any fathers that are

changing like mine? Oh! please do run and tell them quick to stop and

change back again, or they will get poor like mother and me, and have

to live up in a cold, bare garret, and Santa Claus won't come down the

chimney on Christmas eve, because their children won't have any

stockings to hang up, and they will feel so hungry and so cold in the

night. Oh! I could tell them, and mother could tell them, as she tells

me, that drink brings a black curse on a family, and that God is angry

when he hears the drunkard's children crying for bread. I don't like

to cry when I think of that, but I couldn't help it this morning

because it is Christmas day.

It's all over now, I do so wish that mother was here to say thank ye

for all those nice things, but she won't be home till night, for she's

gone over to Mrs. Nabob's to work, where they are to have a great

party. But when she comes back I'll tell her all about it, and when we

say our prayers to-night we'll ask God to bless the good, kind

gentleman who thought about coming here to wish us a Merry Christmas.

--------

ORIGINAL.

CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

"As long as ye did it unto the least of these my brethren, ye did it

unto Me."

There is a secret chamber in my breast

Of which my Jesus hath sole custody

But if my neighbor willeth there to rest,

Then Jesus kindly lendeth him the key.

------

{519}

ORIGINAL.

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

XI.

THE ORIGINAL STATE OF THE FIRST PARENTS OF MANKIND--THE RELATION OF

ADAM TO HIS POSTERITY--THE FALL OF MAN--ORIGINAL SIN.

The grand theatre of probation is this earth, and its chief subject

the human race. The probation of the angels was completed almost

instantaneously, and their transit to an immutable state followed

almost immediately on their creation. The probation of the human race

is long and complicated, diversified and extensive; and by it the most

magnificent exhibition is made of the principle of merit. It has also

this peculiarity that mankind were created, not merely as individuals,

each with his distinct probation, but also as a race; and that the

whole race had a probation at its origin, in the person of its

progenitor. It is our present task to unfold the Catholic doctrine

concerning the nature and results of this original probation of the

collective human race in the first epoch of its creation.

The Catholic doctrine teaches, in the first place, that the entire

human race, at present inhabiting the globe, is one; not merely in

being conformed to one archetype, but also in being descended by

generation from one common progenitor, that is, from Adam.

That this is distinctly affirmed in the book of Genesis, which the

Catholic Church receives as a portion of the inspired Scripture,

according to the obvious and literal sense of the words, is not

questioned by any one. It is only necessary, therefore, to show that

this obvious and literal sense is proposed by the authority of the

Catholic Church as the true sense. That is, that it is an essential

portion of Catholic doctrine, that God created at first one pair of

human beings, Adam and Eve, from whom all mankind are descended.

It seems evident enough that the archaic records, in which the history

of the creation of man is contained, were understood in this sense by

those who transmitted them from the beginning of human history, and

who first committed them to writing; and by Moses, who incorporated

them into the book of Genesis. This was the traditional sense

universally received among the Jews, as is manifest from all the

monuments of tradition. It is also the sense which is reaffirmed in

the other sacred and canonical books which follow those of Moses,

wherever they allude to the subject. For instance: "Who knoweth if the

spirit of the _children of Adam_ ascend upward." [Footnote 154] "Seth

and Sem obtained glory among men: _and above every soul, Adam in the

beginning_," [Footnote 155]

[Footnote 154: Eccles. iii. 21.]

[Footnote 155: Eccles. xlix. 19.]

The similar traditions of heathen nations are well known. The Sacred

writers of the New Testament use the same explicit language. The

genealogy of Jesus in St. Luke's gospel closes thus: "Who was of

Henos, who was of Seth, _who was of Adam, who was of God_." St. Paul

affirms repeatedly and emphatically: "By _one man_ sin entered into

this world, and by sin death:" "by _the offence of one_ many have

died:" "the judgment indeed was _by one_ unto condemnation:" "by _one

man's offence_ death reigned through one:" "by the offence of _one_,

unto _all men_ to condemnation:" "for as _by the disobedience of one

man, many were made sinners;_ {520} so also, by the obedience of one,

many shall be made just." [Footnote 156] These passages are plainly

dogmatic, and teach the relation of all men to Adam, as an essential

portion of the dogma of original sin. The whole force of the parallel

between Adam and Christ depends, also, on the individual personality

of the former, and his relation to all mankind without exception, as

their head and representative. The same parallel reappears in another

epistle: "For by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of

the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made

alive." "_The first man Adam_ was made a living soul; the last Adam a

quickening spirit. But not first that which is spiritual, but that

which is animal; afterward that which is spiritual. The first man was

of the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. Such as

is the earthly, such also are the earthly; and such as is the

heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly. Therefore as we have

borne the image of the earthly, let us bear also the image of the

heavenly." [Footnote 157]

[Footnote 156: St. Luke iii, 38. Rom. v. 12-19.]

[Footnote 157: I Cor. xv. 21, 22, 35-49.]

These passages all present the fact of the original creation of

mankind in one pair from whom all men are descended in an intimate and

essential relation with Christian doctrine, especially with the dogma

of original sin. It is, therefore, necessary to regard it as a

dogmatic fact, or a fact pertaining to the essence of the revealed

truth, which the sacred writers taught with infallibility under the

influence of divine inspiration. So it has been always regarded in the

church, and is now held by the unanimous consent of theologians. It is

also incorporated into the solemn definitions of faith.

The canons of the second council of Milevis, and of the plenary

council of Carthage, A.D. 418, against the Pelagians, contain the

following definitions:

_Can_. 1. Placuit, ut quicunqae dicit, _Adam primum hominem_ mortalem

factum, ita, ut sive peccaret, sive non peccaret, moreretur in

corpore, hoc est de corpore exiret, non peccati merito, sed

necessitate naturae, anathema sit.

_Can_. 2. Item placuit, ut quicumque parvulos recentes ab uteris

matrum baptizandos negat, aut dicit in remissionem quidem peccatorum

eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod

regenerationis lavacro expietur, unde sit consequens, ut in eis forma

baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera, sed falsa

intelligatur, anathema sit: quoniam non aliter intelligendum est quod

ait Apostolus: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per

peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines pertransiit, in quo omnes

peccaverunt: nisi quemadmodum ecclesia catholica ubique diffusa semper

intellexit.

"_Can_. 1. It was decreed, that whoever says that _Adam, the first

man_, was made mortal, so that, whether he sinned or did not sin, he

should die in the body, that is, depart from the body, not by the

merit of sin, but by the necessity of nature, should be under the ban.

"_Can_. 2. It was also decreed, that whosoever denies that new-born

infants are to be baptized, or says that they are to be indeed

baptized for the remission of since, but derive no original sin _from

Adam_, which can be expiated in the laver of regeneration whence it

follows that in them the form of baptism is understood to be not true,

but false, should be under the ban; since that is not otherwise to be

understood which the apostle says: 'By one man sin entered into the

world, and death by sin, and so it passed upon all men, in whom all

have sinned;' _except as the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has

always understood it_."

These canons, although not in active by ecumenical councils, were

nevertheless approved by Popes Innocent I. and Zosimus, by them

promulgated to the universal church and ratified by {521} the consent

of the whole body of bishops; so that they are justly included among

the final and irreversible decisions of the Catholic Church. The

second of these canons was also reenacted by the Council of Trent,

which defined in the clearest terms the dogma of original sin as

derived from the sin of Adam, the head of the human race.

1. Si quis non confitetur, _primum hominem Adam_, mandatum Dei in

paradiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctitatem, etc., amisisse: A.

S.

2. Si quis Adae prevaricationem sibi soli, non ejus propagini, asserit

nocuisse . . . . aut inquinatum illum per inobedientiae peccatum,

mortem et poenas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse,

non autem et peccatum, quod est mors animae: A. S. cum contradicit

Apostolo dicenti: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, etc.

3. Si quis _hoc Adae peccatum, quod origine unum est_, et

propagatione, non imitatione, _transfusum omnibus_, inest cuique

proprium . . . . per aliud remedium asserit tolli, etc.: A. S.

"1. If any one does not confess that _the first man Adam_, when he had

transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost

sanctity, etc., let him be under the ban.

"2. If any one asserts that the prevarication of Adam injured himself

alone, and not his posterity . . . . or that he, being defiled by the

sin of disobedience, transmitted death and the pains of the body only

to the whole human race, but not also sin, which is the death of the

soul, let him be under the ban: since he contradicts the apostle, who

says: By one man sin entered into the world, etc.

"3. If any one asserts that this sin of Adam, which in origin is one,

and being transferred into all by propagation, not by imitation,

exists in each one as his own . . . . is taken away by any other

remedy, etc, let him be under the ban."

All these decrees affirm positively that the whole human race without

exception are involved in one common original sin, springing from one

transgression committed by the first man Adam, and transmitted from

him by generation. The dogma of original sin rests, therefore, on the

fact that all mankind are descended from one first man Adam, and is

subverted, if this fact is denied. An allegorical interpretation of

the sacred history of Genesis, according to which Adam and Eve are

taken to symbolize the progenitors of several distinct human species,

cannot be admitted as tenable, in accordance with the Catholic faith.

For, in this hypothesis, the different human races had each a distinct

probation, a separate destiny, a separate fall, and are therefore not

involved in one common original sin, but each one in the sin of its

own progenitor. This doctrine of original sin, namely, that a number

of Adams sinned, and that each one transmitted his sin to his own

progeny, so that every man is born in an original sin derived from

some one of the various primeval men, is essentially different from

the Catholic doctrine as clearly taught by Scripture and tradition,

and defined by the authority of the church. Moreover, the unity and

individuality of Adam, as the sole progenitor of the human race, is

distinctly affirmed in the decrees just cited, and in all the

subsequent decrees concerning the primitive state of man which have

emanated from the Holy See, and are received by the universal church.

We must consider, therefore, the doctrine of the unity of the human

race as pertaining to the faith. Perrone affirms this, in these words:

"Prop. II. Universum humanum genus ab Adam omnium protoparente

propagatium est. Haec propositio spectat ad fidem; huic enim innititur

dogma de propagatione peccati originalis." "The entire human race has

been propagated from Adam the first parent of all. This proposition

pertains to faith; for upon it rests the dogma of the propagation of

original sin." [Footnote 158]

[Footnote 158: Perrone, Prael. Theil. De Him. Creat.]

{522}

Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, who is not only one of the most learned

of our theologians, but a man profoundly versed in the physical

sciences, in a very able and interesting lecture recently delivered in

New York, thus speaks on this matter:

"Some nowadays, disregarding all that Holy Scripture teaches us

concerning the origin of man, or treating it as a myth and fable,

referring at most only to the Caucasian race, pretend that America had

her own special Adam and Eve, or, as they think more probable, quite a

number of them contemporaneously or successively in different

localities.

"I shall not here undertake to discuss this last opinion, _ventured

certainly against the teachings of divine revelation_, and, as I

conceive, no less against the soundest principles of philosophy, of

comparative anatomy, of philology, and of natural history. I will

assume it as an established and accepted truth, that God made all

nations of one blood." [Footnote 159]

[Footnote 159: Lecture by the Rt. Rev. P. N. Lynch, D.D., on America

before Columbus. Reported in the New York Tablet.]

The only point we have been endeavoring to make, that the doctrine of

the unity of the race pertains to essential Catholic doctrine, is, we

think, fairly made. The scientific refutation of the contrary

hypothesis is a work most desirable, in our opinion, but one requiring

a degree of scientific knowledge which the author does not possess. It

is a work, also, which could be accomplished only by an extensive

treatise. The judgment of the distinguished author just cited may be

taken, however, as a summing up of the verdict of a great body of

scientific men, given on scientific grounds, in favor of the doctrine

of the unity of the race. The contrary doctrine is mere hypothesis,

which no man can possibly pretend to demonstrate. It cannot,

therefore, be brought out to oppose the revealed Catholic doctrine.

Hypothesis even when supported by a certain amount of scientific

probability, is not science. Real science is indubitably certain.

There cannot, therefore, ever arise a real contradiction between

science and revelation. Science will never contradict revelation, and

revelation does not contradict any part of science which is already

known or ever will become known. We are not, however, to hold our

belief in revealed truths in abeyance, until their perfect agreement

with scientific truths is demonstrated. Nor are we to tolerate mere

hypotheses and probable opinions in science when they are contrary to

truths known by revelation, because they cannot be demonstrated to be

false on purely scientific grounds.

There are only two real difficulties to be encountered in the solution

of the scientific problem. One is, the difficulty of accounting for

the variations In type, language, etc., between different families of

the human race within the commonly received historic period. The other

is the difficulty of explaining certain discoveries in the historical

monuments of Egypt, and certain geological discoveries of the remains

of man or human works, in accordance with the same period. Yet has

been justly and acutely remarked by a recent British writer on this

subject, that the objections made under this second head, if they are

sufficient to establish the necessity of admitting a longer

chronology, destroy the objections under the first head. Given a

longer time for these changes, and the difficulty of supposing them to

be real variations from a unique type vanishes. The chronological

difficulties under the second head are of two classes. One class

relates to the history of well-known post-diluvian nations, whose

historical records have been discovered, indicating a longer period

than the one commonly reckoned between the age of Noah and that of

Moses. The other relates to tribes or individuals about whom nothing

is known historically, but to whom geological evidence assigns a

higher antiquity than that commonly allowed {523} to the epoch of the

creation of man. Now, these difficulties in no way tend to impugn the

doctrine of the unity of the race, but merely the chronology of the

history of the race from the ethics of the creation of the first man,

which has been commonly supposed to be established by the authority of

Scripture. If this last supposition may be classed among theological

opinions not pertaining to essential Catholic doctrine, and we may be

permitted, _salvâ fide et auctoritate Ecclesiae_, to admit a

chronology long enough to satisfy these claims of a higher antiquity

for man, all difficulty vanishes. One thing is certain, that if the

inspired books of Moses did originally contain an exact chronology of

human history from Adam to the Exodus of Israel, we cannot now

ascertain within fifteen hundred years what it was, since there is

that amount of variation between the Hebrew and Greek copies. The

weight of probability is decidedly in favor of the Septuagint, which

gives the longer chronology. Yet, it is impossible to explain how the

variation between the Septuagint and the Hebrew, and the variation of

the Samaritan version from both, arose. The great essential facts

pertaining to religious doctrine have been handed down by Scripture

and tradition in their unimpaired integrity. We are bound to believe

that the providence of God watched over their transmission, and

protected them from any designed or accidental alteration. Some

general principles and data of chronology are included in this

essential history, which is guaranteed by inspiration and the

authority of the church. Nevertheless, these chronological data are

manifestly so incomplete and imperfect, that a precise and accurate

chronological system cannot be deduced from them. So far as it is

possible to form a chronological system at all, it must be done by the

help of all the collateral evidence we can find, This evidence, so far

as we are aware, does not tend to establish, with a high degree of

probability, an epoch of creation more than a few thousand years

earlier than the common one of 4,000 years before Christ. This is

certainly true of the historical records of Egypt, the principal

source of new light on the ancient historical epochs. We are warranted

by the Septuagint in adding fifteen hundred years to the common

period. It is only, however, on critical and historical grounds that

the Septuagint has greater authority on this point than the Hebrew,

and not as having a higher sanction. For the Hebrew is the original

and authentic Scripture, and the authorized Latin Version follows it,

and not the Greek. If we can admit, then, a chronology longer by

fifteen hundred years than the one contained in the received text, on

historical grounds, why not one still longer, if sound historical

evidence demands it? Supposing that the Scripture originally did

contain a complete and infallible system of chronology, it is evident

that the key to it was lost many ages ago; and we can just as easily

suppose that the discrepancy between the Mosaic chronology as it now

stands and the chronology of the Egyptian records has arisen by the

same causes which produced the discrepancy of the Hebrew and Greek

texts, as we can assign causes why so great a discrepancy should arise

at all, and reconcile this with the reverence due to the sacred books.

[Footnote 160] This is a matter which needs to be more thoroughly

discussed than it has been, by theologians who are fully acquainted

with the subject, before we can lay down positively a principle upon

which to solve the difficulty. We reject, however, as unprovable and

untenable, all theories which throw the antiquity of man back to an

epoch of vast remoteness, and assign hundreds or {524} thousands of

centuries to a prehistoric period, of which no records remain. It is

on geological discoveries solely that this hypothesis is based. At

present it is only a conjecture, founded on the fact that human

remains have been found of a greater antiquity than those formerly

known, whence it is concluded that they may hereafter be discovered of

a greater antiquity still. We may safely wait for geology itself to

clear up the obscurity at present existing in regard to this matter,

and to set right, as science invariably does, the early and hasty

conjectures of its own votaries. Whichever way the matter may be

settled, the fossil remains of human skeletons or human works will be

assignable either to a period not too remote to be included in the

historic period, or to one so remote that it must be excluded from it.

In the first case, there is no difficulty. In the second, nothing is

established from which the falsity of our thesis can be demonstrated.

Our thesis is, that the present human race now inhabiting the earth is

descended from one man, Adam. When there is any very probable evidence

presented that another and distinct species, having a physical

organization like that of the human race, once existed on the earth,

from which it has become extinct, it will be time to examine that

theory. For the present we are concerned with Adam only and his race;

to which both our readers and ourselves have but too conclusive

evidence that we all belong. [Footnote 161]

[Footnote 160: Archbishop Manning says: "No system of chronology is

laid down in the sacred books. There are at least three

chronologies, probable and admissible, apparently given by Holy

Scripture. It cannot be said, therefore, that there are

chronological faults in Holy Scripture, forasmuch as no ascertained

chronology is there declared."--Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost,

p. 171, American edition.]

[Footnote 161: The Gentle Skeptic, by Rev. C.A. Walworth, now pastor

of St. Mary's Church Albany, treats of several topics, here noticed

in a cursory manner. This work is the result of several years close

and accurate study in theology and science. It has, therefore, the

solidity and elaborate finish of a work executed with care and

diligence by one who is both a strong thinker and a sound scholar.

In style it is a model of classic elegance and purity, and in every

respect it deserves a place among the best works of English Catholic

literature. The author has broke ground in a field of investigation

which it is imperative on Catholic scientific men to work up

thoroughly. The entire change which has taken place in the attitude

of science toward revealed religion within a few years, and the

doctrines of science themselves, makes the old works written on the

connection between religion and science to a great degree useless.

The subject needs to be taken up afresh, and handled in a manner

adequate to the present intellectual wants of the age.]

We have now to consider what Catholic doctrine teaches of that state

in which the first parents of the human race were constituted at their

creation. Briefly, it is this: that this was a supernatural state of

sanctity and justice, in which were contained, or with which were

connected, the gift of integrity, or immunity from concupiscence, the

gift of science, and the gift of corporeal immortality.

That man was created in sanctity and justice is affirmed as _de fide_

by the decree of the Council of Trent, a part of which is cited above,

in which Adam is declared "to have lost immediately the _sanctity and

justice in which he had been constituted:_" "statim sanctitatem et

justitiam in quo constitutus fuerat amisisse." That he possessed

integrity is proved by the same decree, which declares that by the

fall he was "changed _as to his body and soul into something worse_:"

"secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse." That he

possessed science is proved by the declaration of the book of

Ecclesiasticus: "Disciplinâ intellectus replevit illos. Creavit illis

scientiam spiritus:" "He filled them with the knowledge of

understanding. He created in them the science of the spirit."

[Footnote 162] This is explained and corroborated by the traditional

teachings of all the fathers and great theologians of the church. His

immunity from death is proved by the decrees above cited and others

familiar to all.

[Footnote 162: Ecclus. xvii. 5, 6.]

It is shown to be the Catholic doctrine that these gifts were

supernatural, by the condemnation of the contrary doctrine by the Holy

See. The following theses of Baius, one of the precursors of

Jansenism, were condemned by Pius V. and Gregory XIII.:

"21. Humanae naturae sublimatio et exaltatio in consortium divinae

naturae, debita fuit integritati primae conditionis, et non

supernaturalis; 26. Integritas primae creationis non fuit indebita

humanae naturae exaltatio, sed {525} naturalis ejus conditio; 55. Deus

non potuisset ab initio talem creare hominem qualis nunc nascitur; 78.

Immortalitas primi hominis non erat gratiae beneficium, sed naturalis

conditio; 79. Falsa est doctorum sententia primum hominem potuisse a

Deo creari et institui sine justitiâ natarali." Clement XI., in the

Bull _Unigenitus_, also condemned the following proposition, the 33rd

of Quesnel: "Gratia Adami est sequela creationis et erat debita

naturae sanae et integrae."

"21. The elevation and exaltation of human an nature into the

fellowship of the divine nature was due to the integrity of its first

condition, and is therefore to be called natural and not supernatural;

26. The integrity of the primal creation was not an exaltation of

human nature which was not due to it, but its natural condition; 55.

God could not have created man from the beginning such as he is now

born; 78. The immortality of the first man was not a benefit of grace,

but his natural condition; 79. The opinion of doctors is false, that

the first man could have been created and instituted by God without

natural justice (righteousness.") 33d of Quesnel: "The grace of Adam

is a sequel of creation, and was due to sound and integral nature."

It is plain from the decisions which have been quoted, and from the

consentient doctrine of all Catholic doctors, that the Catholic

doctrine is: that the state of original sanctity and integrity did not

flow from the intrinsic, essential principles of human nature, and was

not due to it, but was a free gift of grace superadded to nature, that

is, supernatural. We do not, however, censure the opinion held by some

sound Catholic writers, that congruity, order, or the fitness of

things, exacts that supernatural grace be always given to rational

nature. It is our own opinion, already clearly enough insinuated,

that, although the completion and perfection of the universe does

exact that a supernatural order should be constituted, it does not

exact the elevation of all rational species or individuals to this

order. This opinion appears to be more in accordance with the obvious

sense of the decrees just cited. It is also the opinion of St. Thomas,

and, after him, of the more prevalent school of theology. St. Thomas

thus expresses himself upon this point: "Poterat Deus, a principio

quando hominem condidit, etiam alium hominem ex limo terrae formare,

quem in conditione suae naturae relinqueret, ut scilicet mortalis et

passibilis esset et pugnam concupiscentiae ad rationem sentiens, in

quo nihil humanae naturae derogaretur, quia hoc ex principiis naturae

consequitur; non tamen iste defectus in eo rationem culpae et poenae

habuisset, quia non per voluntatem iste defectus causatus esset." "God

could have formed, from the beginning when he created man, also

another man from the dust of the earth, whom he might have left in the

condition of his own nature, that is, so that he would have been

mortal and passible, and would have felt the conflict of concupiscence

against reason, in which there would have been nothing derogatory to

human nature, because this follows from the principles of nature;

nevertheless this defect in him would not have had the quality of sin

and punishment, because this defect would not have been caused by the

will." [Footnote 163]

[Footnote 163: 2 Sentent., Dist. 31, qu. 1, ant. 2 ad 8. ]

The sanctifying grace conferred upon Adam is very clearly shown,

according to this view, to have been a pure and perfectly gratuitous

boon from God, to which human nature, as such, could have no claim

whatever, even of congruity.

The nature of the probation of the father of mankind is now easily

explained. He received a gratuitous gift on conditions, and these

conditions were the matter of his probation. Our scope and limits do

not admit of a minute discussion of the particular circumstances of

the trial and fall of Adam in Paradise. The point to be considered is

the relation in which {526} Adam stood to all mankind his posterity in

his trial, transgession, and condemnation. The Catholic dogma of faith

on this head is clearly defined and unmistakable. The whole human race

was tried, fell, and was condemned, in the trial, fall, and

condemnation of Adam. It is needless to cite again the passages of

Holy Scripture and the decisions of the church which establish this

fundamental doctrine of Christianity. The only question to be

discussed is, What is the real sense and meaning of the doctrine? How

did all mankind sin in Adam, and by his transgression incur the

condemnation of death? What is the nature of that original sin in

which we are born?

One theory is that the sin of Adam is arbitrarily imputed to his

posterity. As a punishment for this imputed sin, they are born

depraved, with an irresistible propensity to sin, and under the doom

of eternal misery. The statement of this theory is its best

refutation. Very few hold it now, and we may safely leave to

Protestant writers the task of demonstrating its absurdity.

Another theory is, that all human wills were included in the will of

Adam, so that they all concurred with his will in the original

transgression. [Footnote 164]

[Footnote 164: We refer the reader to the argument of Candace in

Mrs. Stowe's Minister's Wooing, for a humorous but unanswerable

reputation of the ancient Calvinistic doctrine of original sin.]

We find some difficulty in comprehending this statement. Did we all

have a distinct existence, and enjoy a deliberative and decisive vote

when the important question of human destiny was decided? If so, the

unanimity of the judgment, and the total oblivion which has fallen

upon us all, respecting our share in it and our whole subsequent

existence, until a very recent period, are very remarkable phenomena

which we have never seen adequately accounted for. The only other

alternative is that of indistinct existence or virtual existence. That

is, that the power of generating souls was in Adam, and that all human

souls are actually derived from his soul by generation. Suppose they

are. A father who has lost an organ or a limb does not necessarily

transmit this defect to his posterity. Even if he does transmit some

defect which he has contracted by his own fault to his son, that son

is not to blame for it. If the principle of all souls was in Adam,

virtually, their personality, which is the principle of imputability,

commences only with there are distinct existence. Personality is

incommunicable. An individual soul cannot communicate with another in

the principle of identity, from which all imputability of acts, all

accountability, all possibility of moral relations, proceeds. This

notion of the derivation of souls, one from another, or from a common

soul-reservoir, is, however, one perfectly inconceivable, and contrary

to the plainest principles of philosophy. Substance is simple and

indivisible. Spirit, which is the most perfect substance, contains,

therefore, in its essence the most manifest contradiction to all

notion of composition, resolution, division, or separation of parts.

The substance of Adam's soul was completely in his own individual

intelligence and will. The notion of any other souls deriving their

substance from his soul is therefore wholly without out meeting. There

is no conceivable way in which spirit can produce spirit, except by

creation, and act to which created spirit is incompetent.

There remains, therefore only the doctrine, which is that of Catholic

theology, that the human species is corporeally propagated by means of

generation, and was therefore, in this respect only, virtually in

Adam; but that each individual soul is immediately created by God, and

comes into the generic and specific relations of humanity through its

union in one integral personality with the body. How, then, can each

individual soul become involved in a original sin? Does God create it

sinful? This cannot be; and if it could it would not be the sin of

Adam, or the sin of the race, but its own personal sin. The soul as it

comes from the hand of God cannot be sinful in act. {527} The only

possible supposition remaining is, that the soul contracts sin from

contact or union with the body. Here the Calvinist, the Jensenist, or

any other who maintains that original sin consists in positive

deprivation of the soul's essence, or in habitual moral perversity, or

determination of the will to sin, is in a position where he cannot

move a step forward. How can _soul_ be corrupted by body? How has the

innocent soul deserved to be thrust into a body by which it must be

polluted? These questions will never receive an answer. Nor will any

credible or rational method of vindicating the doctrine that all men

are born totally and positively depraved, or with a nature in any

respect essentially evil, on account of Adam's sin, ever be

discovered. The doctrine is utterly incredible and unthinkable, and

will no doubt ere long have a place only in the history of past

errors.

The way is now clear for the exposition of the Catholic doctrine

respecting the mutual relations of Adam and his posterity in the

original probation, trial, and fall of the human race immediately

after its creation. That probation of Adam, in which the human race

was included, must not be understood as including the entire personal

probation either of himself or of his descendants. His own probation

lasted during his lifetime, and so does that of each individual man.

Had he been faithful in that particular trial which is related in the

first chapter of Genesis, it is probable that, although the special

privileges whose perpetuation depended on it would certainly have then

secured to the race, he himself would have had a longer personal

trial. So also, if the progeny of Adam had been confirmed in the

perpetual possession of the privileges of the primeval state, each

individual of the human race would have had a probation of his own,

affecting his own personal destiny alone. Although each one of us

would have been conceived and born in the state of original grace and

integrity, as the Blessed Virgin was by a special privilege, as soon

as the actual exercise of reason became completely developed, a period

of probation would have commenced, in which we should have been liable

to fail, as we are now after receiving grace through baptism.

The probation of the human race in Adam was, therefore, a special

probation, on which the possession in perpetuity of certain

supernatural privileges, freely and gratuitously conceded to the race,

was alone dependent. The merely personal consequences of the sin of

Adam and Eve affected themselves alone individually. That is, the

guilt of an actual transgression with the necessary personal

consequences following from it attached to them alone, and we have

nothing to do with it, any more than with any other sins committed by

our intermediate progenitors. The father of the human race did not

act, however, in a merely individual capacity in this transaction. He

was the federal head and representative of the race. A trust was

committed to him in behalf of all mankind, and this trust was the

great gift of original sanctity and justice, the high dignity of

supernatural affiliation to God, the glorious title to the kingdom of

heaven. By his sin he forfeited this gift in trust, both for himself

as an individual, and also for his descendants who were to have

inherited it from him. There is no ground for asking the question, why

it followed that Adam, having fallen, should transmit a fallen nature

by generation to his posterity. This question is only asked on the

supposition that fallen nature is a nature essentially changed and

depraved, whereas it is really a nature which has fallen from a

supernatural height back to its own proper condition. With all due

respect to the eminent writers who have attempted to answer this

question, we must be allowed to say that we cannot attach any definite

meaning to their answer. {528} Adam, they say, having a fallen nature,

could only transmit the nature which he had. All humanity was in him

when he sinned, and therefore humanity as generic having fallen into

sin, each individual who participates by conception in generic

humanity participates in its sin, or is conceived in original sin.

This language may be used and understood in a true sense; but in its

literal sense, and as it is very generally understood, it has no

meaning. It is derived from the extravagant and unintelligible realism

of William of Champeaux, and some other schoolmen, according to which

humanity as a genus has a real and positive entity, like the great

animal _in se_ of Plato, from whom all particular animals receive

their entity. These notions have long since become obsolete, and it is

useless to refute them. The The human genus or species was completely

in Adam, but it was not distinct from his individuality; rather it was

completely in his individuality constituting it in its own generic or

specific grade of existence, as the individuality of a man. Humanity

is also completely in every other human individual. This humanity,

constituting the specific essence of Adam, as a man, was identical

with his existence, for existence is only metaphysical essence reduced

to act. It could not be essentially changed without destroying his

human existence. Whatever is contained in _humanitas_ must have

remained in him after the fall, otherwise he would no longer have

remained a man, or indeed have continued to exist at all. It is only

this _humanitas_ or specific essence of human nature, that Adam had

any natural power to reproduce by generation. He could not have lost

the power of transmitting it by the fall, except by losing altogether

the power of reproducing his species. The immediate, physical effect

of generation is merely the production of the life-germ, from which

the body is developed under the formative action of a soul, created

immediately by God. The only depravation or corruption of nature,

therefore, which is physically possible, or which can be supposed to

follow by a necessary law from the corruption of nature in Adam, is a

corruption or degeneracy in in this life-germ, through which a

defective or degenerate body is produced. This opinion has then long

ago condemned by the church. It is, moreover, contrary to science. The

human animal is perfect as an animal, and although there is accidental

degeneracy in individuals, there is no generic or specific degeneracy

of the race from it's essential type. But supposing that a defective

body were the necessary consequence of Adam's sin, a defective soul

could not be. The parent does not concur to the creation of the soul

of his offspring, except as an cause. God creates the soul, and he

cannot create a human soul without creating it in conformity to the

metaphysical archetype of soul in his own idea, and therefore having

the essence on soul completely in itself. How, then, can the infusion

of this soul into a body which is physically degenerate make it

unworthy of that degree of the love of God and of that felicity, which

it is worthy of intrinsically, and apart from its union with the body?

There is no law in nature by virtue of which Adam must or could

transmit anything essentially more than human nature before the fall,

or essentially less after the fall. The law by which he was entitled

to transmit privileges or gifts additional to nature on condition of

is fulfilling the terms of God's covenant with him was therefore a

positive law; why those human laws which enable man to transmit with

their blood property, titles of nobility, or the hereditary right to a

crown. These privileges may be forfeited, by the crime of an

individual in whom they are vested, for himself and for his posterity.

They may be forfeited for posterity, because they are not natural

rights. In the same manner, the supernatural gifts conferred on Adam

were forfeited for the human race by his sin, because they were {529}

not natural rights, or _debita naturae_, but gratuitous gifts to which

Adam's posterity had do hereditary right, except that derived from the

sovereign concession of God, and conceded only in a conditional

manner. This conditional right could only be perfected by the

obedience of Adam to the precept of the Almighty forbidding him to eat

of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As he failed

to obey this precept, his posterity never acquired a perfect right to

the gifts of supernatural grace through him. By virtue, therefore, of

our descent from him, we possess nothing but human nature and those

things which naturally belong to it; we are born in the state in which

Adam would have been placed at the beginning if God had created him in

the state of pure nature.

We do not stand, therefore, before God, by virtue of our conception

and birth from the first parents of mankind, in the attitude of

personal offenders or voluntary transgressors of his law. Our

essential relation to God as rational creatures is not broken. Our

nature is essentially good, and capable of attaining all the good

which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles; that is, all

natural knowledge, virtue, and felicity. That which is immediately

created by God must be essentially good. A spirit is essentially

intelligence and will, and therefore good in respect to both, or

capable of thinking the truth and willing the good. Moreover, it is a

certain philosophical truth that when God creates a spirit he must

create it in act, or that the activity of the spirit is coeval with

its existence. The first act or state of a spirit, as it precedes all

reflection, deliberation, or choice, and flows necessarily from the

creative act of God himself, is determined by him, and must therefore

be good. The acts which follow, either follow necessarily from the

first, or are the product of free deliberation. In the first case,

they are necessarily good; and in the second they may be good,

otherwise they would be necessarily evil, which is contrary to the

supposition that they are free. The human soul being in its essence

spirit, and incapable of being corrupted by the body, must therefore

be essentially good at the moment when it attains the full exercise of

reason and of the faculty of free choice. If so, it is capable of

apprehending by its intelligence and choosing by its will that which

is good, and cannot, therefore, come into the state of actual sin or

become a personal transgressor except by a free and deliberate purpose

to violate the eternal law, with full power to the contrary. It may

exercise this power to the contrary by a correct judgment, a right

volition, and thus attains the felicity which is the necessary

consequence of acting rationally and conscientiously. So far as this

is possible to mere unassisted nature, it may continue to put forth a

series of acts of this kind during the whole period of its earthly

existence. That is to say, it is capable of attaining all the good

which can be evolved from its intrinsic principles, or all natural

knowledge, virtue, and felicity. This is equivalent to saying, that it

can have a natural knowledge and love of God, as is affirmed by the

best theologians with the sanction of the church. For Pius V. has

condemned the following proposition, the 34th of Baius: "Distinctio

illa duplicis amoris, naturalis videlicet quo Deus amatur ut auctor

naturae, et gratuiti quo Deus amatur ut beatificator, vana est et

commentitia et ad illudendum sacris litteris et plurimis veterum

testimoniis excogitata." "The distinction of a twofold love, namely,

natural, by which God is loved as the author of nature, and

gratuitous, by which God is loved as the beatifier, is vain and

futile, and invented for the purpose of evading that which is taught

by the Holy Scriptures and by many testimonies of the ancient

writers." [Footnote 165] It would be easy to multiply proofs that the

doctrine of man's capability of moral virtue, from the intrinsic {530}

principles of here's nature, is the genuine Catholic doctrine.

[Footnote 166] This is not necessary, however, at present.

[Footnote 165: Denziger's Enchirid., p. 305.]

[Footnote 166: See Aspirations of Nature by Rev. I. T. Hecker,

passim.]

We proceed to another point, namely, How it is that mankind can be

said to be born in original sin, when they are innocent of all

personal and actual sin at the time of birth? The state in which

Adam's posterity are born, and which is denominated the state of

original sin, considered subjectively, is a state of privation of

supernatural grace and integrity. If man had been created for a

natural destiny, this state of inhability to the supernatural would

not have been a state of sin. If he had been created in the state in

which he is now born, as a preparatory state to the state of grace, to

be endowed at a subsequent period with supernatural gifts, it would

not have been a state of sin. Entitively it would have been the same

state as that in which he is now born. It would not have been a state

of sin, because the state of sin receives its denomination from a

voluntary transgression which produces it. The particular notion of

sin is an aversion from God as the supreme good produced by the

voluntary election of an inferior good in his place. The posterity of

Adam are born in a state of habitual aversion from God as the supreme

good in the supernatural order, which is the consequence of the

original sin of Adam. Since they virtually possessed a right to be

born in the state of grace and integrity, which was forfeited by his

sin, the state of privation in which they are born, relatively to

their original ideal condition and to the transgression by which they

were degraded from it, is properly denominated a state of sin. This is

incurred by each individual soul through its connection with the body

which descends from our first parents by generation, because it is

this infusion into a human body which constitutes it a member of the

human race. As a member of the human race, and by virtue of his

descent from Adam, each individual man participates in all the generic

relations of the race. If Adam had not sinned, he would have received

by inheritance from from him a high dignity and great possessions,

transmitted to him through the blood; as the case is, he is born

disinherited. There is no injustice or unkindness in this; because the

rights which have been forfeited were not rights involved in the

concession of rational existence itself, but rights gratuitously

conceded on certain conditions, and because no personal blame is

imputed where none exists. The illustration so often employed by

theologians of a nobleman who has suffered attainder is perfectly apt

to the case. His posterity are born under an attainder, which in human

law corresponds to original sin under the divine law, and are thus

placed in a state of privation; relatively to that condition of

nobility which was formerly hereditary in the family; but which in

itself is an honest condition. In the eye of the law, their father's

crime makes them incapable of the privileges of nobility, but it does

not deprive them of the common rights of private subjects.

So the children of Adam, on account of his sin, inherit a disability

to possess the nobility of the state of grace and to inherit the

kingdom of heaven. This disability is inherent in the person son of

each one, and therefore "_inest euique proprium_." It is a separation

from God incurred by the transgression of Adam, who represented the

human race in his trial, and therefore is truly and properly sin. It

is a privation of grace which is the supernatural life of the soul,

and is therefore properly called death, or "_mors animae_." The

"_reatus culpae_" is the obligation of being born in a state of

relative degradation, and the "_reatus poenae_" the obligation of

undergoing the conflicts, sufferings, and death which belong to the

state of despoiled nature, as well as submitting to the sentence of

exclusion from the kingdom of God. By it, human nature has been

changed into something worse as to soul and body, {531} "_in deterius

mulatur quoad corpus et animam_," because it is now deprived of

integrity, immortality, and sanctifying grace. Nevertheless this state

is essentially the same with that which would have been the state of

man if he had been created in the state of pure nature. Man in the

state of lapsed nature differs from man in the state of pure nature,

as Perrone says, only as _nudatus_ from _nudo_, one denuded from one

always nude. This is original sin, which consists formally, as St.

Thomas teaches, in the privation of sanctifying grace and the other

gratuitous gifts perfecting nature which depended on it. Mankind,

therefore, by the sin of Adam, have simply fallen back on the state of

pure nature, and are born with those attributes and qualities only

which are contained in human nature by virtue of its intrinsic

principles. To understand, therefore, the condition, capabilities, and

ultimate destiny of man, apart from the grace which comes through the

Redeemer, we have simply to inquire into the essence of these

intrinsic principles, and ascertain what man is, simply as man, where

he can do, and what is the end he can attain by his earthly life.

Man, as to his rational nature, is in the lowest grade of rational

creatures. Except under very favorable circumstances, his intelligence

is very imperfectly developed, and so far as it is developed it is

chiefly employed in perfecting his merely exterior and social life.

Under the most favorable circumstances his progress is slow, his

capacity of contemplating purely intellectual and spiritual objects

weak and limited. As to his body, he is also frail and delicate, and

naturally liable to death. Moreover, there is in his constitution, as

a being composed of soul and body, a certain contrariety of natural

impulses, one set of impulses inclining him to rational good, the

other to sensible or animal good. Like the inferior animals, he is

capable of an improvement of his species up to a certain point which

cannot be fixed, and also liable to a degeneracy which brings, him

down to a state little above that of the brutes, and even to idiocy.

There are indications enough in his soul of a latent capacity for a

much higher and more exalted state, to make it certain that his

present condition is one of merely inchoate existence, and that he is

destined to a future life in which these latent capacities will be

developed in a more perfect corporeal organization. The great

difficulty of forming an ideal conception of the state in which he

would have been constituted, had he been left to his merely natural

development, consists in the fact that we have no human subject to

study except man as he actually is, that is, under a supernatural

providence from the beginning. The actual development of human nature

has taken place under the influence of supernatural grace, and we

cannot discriminate in human history the operation of natural causes

from those which are supernatural. There are three principal

hypotheses respecting the possible development of pure nature which

may be sustained with more or less plausibility. The first is, that

the human race, beginning in its perfection of type as a species, but

without any revelation of language, or any instruction in natural

theology, morals, or science, would have remained always in the same

state in which it was created, without any intellectual or moral

progress. According to this view, the present state of man on earth

would have been a mere stage of existence, which could have no

ulterior end, except the production of a species destined to begin its

higher life in a future state. The second hypothesis is, that the

human race, beginning from the same point of departure, might have

progressed slowly, through very long periods of time, to a high limit

of civilization, knowledge, virtue, and natural religion. The third

is, that a kind of natural revelation, including a positive system of

religion, morals, and science, would have been requisite; in a word,

that human society must have been placed {532} at first, by the

immediate intervention of the Creator, in the state of civilization,

and conducted in its course by a continuance of the same intervention.

We have little room, however, for anything beyond conjecture in this

matter. The only point we are anxious to establish is, that the state

in which we are now born is not one intrinsically evil; that it is not

one derogatory to human nature as such; that it is not one in which

God might not create man in consistency with his sanctity and

goodness.

This point is established on sound theological and philosophical

principles; and from these principles it follows that all the

phenomena of man which are referrible to his original fall are the

natural consequence of his human constitution, and not evidences of a

positive, innate depravity. He is a weak, frail, inconstant creature,

easily led away by the senses and passions, liable to fall into many

errors and sins, but he is not an object of loathing and abhorrence to

his Creator, or an outcast from his love. He has in him all the

primary elements of natural virtue, the germ from which a noble

creature can be developed. Nevertheless, although his natural

condition is one which is not derogatory to himself or his Creator, it

seems to cry out for the supernatural. Its actual weakness and

imperfection, coupled with its latent capacities for a high

development, mark it as being, what it is, the most fitting subject

for the grace of God; and indicate that it was created chiefly to

exemplify in the most signal manner the supernatural love and bounty

of the Creator. It is only in the idea of the supernatural order that

we can find the adequate explication and solution of all the problems

relating to the destiny of man. For that order he was created by an

absolute, not a conditional decree of God. The fulfilment of that

decree was not risked on the issue of Adam's probation. According to

our view, the creation of man was only the inchoation of the

incarnation of the Eternal Word in human nature; and the decree of the

incarnation being absolute, the elevation of human nature was

necessary and must be efficaciously secured. The fall of man from

original grace could not therefore hinder it. After the sin of Adam,

the human race had still a supernatural destiny, and was under the

supernatural order of Providence. The divine decree to confer grace on

man was not abrogated, but only the form and mode under which the

grace was to be conferred were changed. Moreover, by this change, the

human race was, on the whole, a gainer, and came into a better and

more favorable position for attaining its destiny. There was a reason

both for the original constitution of man in the grace of Adam, and

also for the change of that constitution which followed upon Adam's

sin. By the original grant of grace, God showed to mankind his

magnificent liberality and good-will. He gave them also an ideal which

has remained imperishably in their memory of the state of perfection,

and left a sweet odor of paradise to cheer them along their rugged

road of labor and trial. By the withdrawal of that grace he brought

them under a dispensation of mercy, in which their condition is more

humble and painful, but safer and more advantageous for gaining the

highest merit.

St. Francis de Sales says: "L'état de la redemption vaut cent fois

plus que l'état de la justice originalle." "The state of redemption is

a hundred times preferable to the state of original justice."

[Footnote 167] The church herself, in her sublime hymn _Exultet_,

breaks out into the exclamation: "O certé necessarium Adae peccatum; O

felix culpa! quae tantum et talem habere meruit Redemptorem!" "O

certainly necessary sin of Adam; O happy fault! which merited to know

such and so great a redeemer!" We reason to lament our lost paradise,

or to mourn over the fall of our first parents. Our new birth in

Christ is far better than that ancient inheritance forfeited in Eden.

The consideration of the mystery of redemption must be postponed,

however for a future number.

[Footnote 167: This thought has been beautifully developed by Mr.

Simpson in some Essays on Original Sin, published in The Rambler]

----------

{533}

Original.

MY CHRISTMAS TREE.

The Christmas logs were blazing bright, the house was all aglow,

Five little stockings brimming full were hanging in a row;

The balls of golden, silver, red, upon the Christmas tree,

Like fire-flies glancing through the green, were shining merrily,

And gifts for May and Josey, and for Maggie, Kate, and Will,

From bending top to sturdy root, the swaying branches fill;

And I, my labors all complete, sat watching through the night,

For well I knew that busy feet, before the morning-light,

Would patter, patter down the stairs in merry Christmas glee,

And warm and bright as love could make, must their first welcome be.

The while I mused upon their joy, with eyes fixed on the door.

The fairest form I ere had seen glided the threshold o'er--

A sweet and gentle maiden "waxen little past the child,"

And close upon her steps a man of visage grave and mild.

As the fair maiden nearer drew, I saw her small hands prest

The loveliest new-born baby that e'er slept on mortal breast--

Albeit, five fair little buds had blossomed on mine own,

Such winning grace of perfectness mine heart had never known.

Adown, in sudden rapture caught, I fell on bended knee.

For Jesus and Saint Mary and Saint Joseph were with me!

The Maiden Mother gently bent, and in my trembling hands

Laid little baby-Jesus, wrapt up in his swaddling bands.

"Give rest and food and shelter unto him who for your sake

Hath reft himself of all things," thus the Maiden Mother spake;

"Each Christmas eve we, journeying, as once in Bethlehem,

At every Christian door-step ask for shelter, as of them

Who in my mother's maiden home had room for all save him

Before whose throne of living light bow down the seraphim.

And oft times now, as on that night, rejected, we depart.

As though they were Judean inns, from many a Christian heart.

With warmth and light and merry feasts ye hail his natal-day,

But who have place for Jesus Christ who in the manger lay?

Mosttimes the doors are closely barred, the fire-light is grown dim,

And few who watch as now you watch, keep watch or ward for _him_."

Her tones were tender, sweet, and low, but through the crust of years

They found the blessed, blessed fount of humble, contrite tears;

And as they overflowed mine eyes, and plashed upon his head,

The baby woke to life and warmth, who seemed so cold and dead;

And pointing where a little gift for "Christ's poor" lowly lay

Beneath the tree so richly bowed, he smiled, and passed away.

Ah! me, how little seemed the share that I had laid aside

To give to him who for our sake was born and crucified!

_He_ held back naught, the last red drop flowed out for you and me:

Oh! surely he should have the best on every Christmas tree.

Genevieve Sales.

----------

{534}

Translated from the German.

THE LITTLE BIRDS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

On holy Christmas morning there was a grand assemblage of little birds

behind the elder-tree yonder which stands between the court-yard and

the garden, flanked on one side by the barn and on the other by heaps

of grain that had found no shelter in the granary--so rich had been

the blessings of the Lord!

The sparrow with his house and generation was very fully represented

in the meeting; and all who belonged to his family puffed out their

feathers and sat looking as if something vexatious had befallen them.

The lark, sitting between the furrows in the field hard by, raised

himself up a little way now and again, warbling a short kyrie or

gloria as his thoughts came and went.

Finches and goldhammers were there in great spirits, as usual; and the

blackbird perched now inside the court-wall, now on the outside; then

he flew down to the brook, ducked down and up again, flew up into the

tree with the other birds, and praised the cold-water-cure, which

makes one feel right fresh and joyful as nothing else can.

Ravens and crows and the rest of the grab-alls, who are for ever

finding what no one has lost, crowded close together on the

grain-stacks in deep and loud discussion.

But the sparrow began to bewail his fate thus: "I have been sadly

disturbed in my night's rest, for before daybreak all the bells in the

steeples began to ring as if for fire. I flew out into the darkness;

and all around the houses looked bright, as if they were on fire

within. Many tiny candles were lighted, and the trees on which they

burned were covered with all kinds of fruit, such as I never have seen

together on one tree. But we enjoy nothing of all this. Our trees are

bare enough, and have not even leaves to screen us from this winter's

cold. We shall starve to death or freeze, when once food becomes

scarcer and the cold more piercing."

But the lark in the field scratched up a few worms which a mole had

tossed out with the earth; and the blackbird helped her to choose some

little worms, and that was their breakfast.

The shepherd drove his flocks through the narrow path, while

thorn-bushes on each side, and the blackberry briers and wild-rose

bushes, who had heard the birds' complaint, stretched their branches

across the way, so that the little sheep left locks of wool upon them,

some more, some less, but never enough to do them any harm. But the

birds were behind them, and gathered up the wool and carried it to

their homes, in the knot-holes of trees or crevices of walls or

hollows of the earth, and there they grew warmer warmer. Then, as they

picked at the wool, red hips, which the cold had made sweet and soft,

peeped out, and they ate them with joyful hearts.

Again rang out the bells from tower and steeple; the houses-door

opened, and the family came fourth; maid-servants first, then sons and

daughters, and, to close up the procession, the housewife and the

farmer.

"Father," said the eldest son, "it will fare ill with our corn-stacks

in the field if, before going to church, we do not shoot in among the

feathered gentry yonder, who have torn the outer coverings already,

and will soon make their way in among the unthreshed grain. The

magpies willingly read where they have not sown. They cluster here

from the whole neighborhood. Gladly would I give them a few leaden

peas for food, and silence their chattering for ever."

{535}

"By no means," replied the farmer. "No shot shall be fired during this

blessed Christmas season--on the gracious birthday of him who

overthrew indeed the tables of the money-changers, and made a scourge

of cords to drive out both buyer and seller from his temple, but only

said to those who sold doves, 'Take them hence.' He did not blame the

poor little doves; and never, on this day, when dumb beasts gave up to

him their manger for the cradle because men found no room for him in

the inn, never shall any creature find death in my fields for the sake

of a few blades of grass or kernels of grain."

But the farmer's wife had already turned back, and one of the lads

was, at her command, strewing a whole sheaf of grain before the

house-front. So generously did he scatter the food to the doves and

poultry, that there was enough and to spare for their neighbors on the

elder-tree, and magpie and raven had a fair share without being envied

by hens or disturbed by men. Thus in the court-yard was there also a

little of that "peace on earth" of which angels sang one Christmas

night upon the plains of Bethlehem. Nor did the farmer lack anything

in hay-loft or granary because the little birds of heaven had been fed

from his table that blessed Christmas morning.

Remember this: on Christmas feed the poor birds before thy door, and

if thou seest neither lark nor blackbird, nor yet finches,

gold-hammers, nor tomtits, then think of those who have no feathers,

of poor human creatures. Forget not that the angel of the Lord said to

the shepherds: "You will find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes,

and lying in a manger." Seek out the swaddling-clothes of poverty, and

if thou walkest by that light which rose over Bethlehem, then shalt

thou find in those swaddling-clothes and in works of mercy the little

child Jesus!

Mark this: if thou wouldst be happy, then must thou make others happy!

Remember: because Jesus came to the poor, therefore shouldst thou go

to the poor.

----------

Original.

BARABBAS AND I.

BABABBAS.

"Strange that the Jews should set me free,

And let this Jesus die for me!

I have their brethren robbed and slain:

He brought their dead to life again."

I.

"Strange, surely, that the ungrateful Jews

Should thee in place of Jesus choose:

Yet stranger far it is that he

Should choose to die to set _me_ free."

------

{536}

From the Popular Science Review.

AËROLITES.

BY TOWNSHEND M. HALL, F.G.S.

Meteoric stones, or aërolites, as they are generally called (from two

Greek words, _aer_ and _lithos_, signifying "air-stones"), may be

defined as solid masses consisting principally of pure iron, nickel,

and several other metals, sometimes containing also an admixture of

augite, olivine, and hornblende, which, from time to time, at

irregular intervals, have fallen upon the surface of the earth from

above.

Other designations, such as "fire-balls and thunder-bolts," have been

popularly applied to these celestial masses, the former denoting their

usual fiery appearance, whilst the latter has reference to the extreme

suddenness of their descent.

Shooting stars also, although they are not accompanied by the fall of

any solid matter upon the earth, are generally placed in the same

category, since they are supposed to be aërolites which pass

(comparatively speaking) very near our earth, and are visible from it

by night; at the same time their distance from us, varying as it does

from four to two hundred and forty miles and upward, is in most

instances too great to allow of their being drawn down by the

attractive power possessed by the earth. Like comets and eclipses,

these celestial phenomena in former times were universally regarded

with feelings of the greatest awe and superstition; and in Eastern

countries especially, where the fall of a meteoric stone was supposed

to be the immediate precursor of some important public event, or

national calamity, the precise date of each descent was carefully

recorded. In China, for example, such reports reach back to the year

644 before our era; and M. Biot has found in the astronomical section

of some of the most ancient annals of that empire sixteen falls of

aërolites recorded as having taken place between the years 644 B.C.

and 333 after Christ, whilst the Greek and Roman authors mention only

four such occurrences during the same period. Even now, in this age of

science and universal knowledge, aërolites can scarcely be regarded

without a certain degree of dread. Indeed, four or five cases have

occurred in which persons have been killed by them; in another

instance, several villages in India were set on fire by the fall of a

meteoric stone; and it was by no means a pleasant subject for

reflection that such a catastrophe might happen anywhere and at any

moment, especially when we remember that these stones, although not

quite incandescent, are always, more or less, in a heated state; and

sometimes so hot that even after the lapse of six hours they could not

be touched with impunity.

The first fall of meteoric stones on record appears to have taken

place about the year 654: B.C., when, according to a passage in Livy,

a shower of stones fell on the Alban Hill, not far distant from Rome.

The next in chronological order is mentioned by several writers, such

as Diogenes of Apollonia, Plutarch, and Pliny, and described by them

as a great stone, the size of two millstones, and equal in weight to a

full wagon-load. It fell about the year 467 B.C., at AEgos Potamos, on

the Hellespont, and even up to the days of Pliny, four centuries after

its fall, it continued to be an object of curiosity and speculation.

{537} After the close of the first century we fail to obtain any

account or notice of this stone; but although it has been lost sight

of for upward of eighteen hundred years, the eminent Humboldt says, in

one of his works, that notwithstanding all previous failures to

rediscover it, he does not wholly relinquish the hope that even after

such a considerable lapse of time, this Thracian meteoric mass, which

it would be so difficult to destroy, may be found again, especially

since the region in which it fell has now become so easy to access to

European travellers.

The next descent of any particular importance took place at Ensisheim

in Alsace, where an aërolite fell on November 7th, 1492, just at the

time when the Emperor Maximilian, then king of the Romans, happened to

be on the point of engaging with the French army. It was preserved as

a relic in the cathedral at Ensisheim, until the beginning of the

French revolution, when it was conveyed to the Public Library of

Colmar, and it is still preserved there among the treasures.

In later years the shower of aërolites which fell in April, 1803, at

L'Aigle, in Normandy, may well rank as the most extraordinary descent

upon record. A large fire-ball had been observed a few moments

previously, in the neighborhood of Caen and Alençon, where the sky was

perfectly clear and cloudless. At L'Aigle no appearance of light was

visible, and the fire-ball assumed instead the form of a small black

cloud, consisting of vapor, which suddenly broke up with a violent

explosion, followed several times by a peculiar rattling noise. The

stones at the time of their descent were hot, but not red, and smoked

visibly. The number which were afterward collected within an

elliptical area measuring from six to seven miles in length by three

in breadth, has been variously estimated at from two to three

thousand. They ranged in weight from two drachms up to seventeen and

half pounds. The French government immediately deputed M. Biot, the

celebrated naturalist and philosopher, to proceed to the spot, for the

express purpose of collecting the authentic facts concerning a

phenomenon which, until that time, had almost universally been treated

as an instance of popular superstition and credulity. His conclusive

report was the means of putting an end to all scepticism on the

subject, and since that date the reality--not merely the

possibility--of such occurrences has no longer been contested.

Leaving out, for the present, innumerable foreign instances which

might be quoted, we must now glance rapidly at a few of the most

noticeable examples of the fall of meteoric stones which have taken

place in England. The earliest which appears on record descended in

Devonshire, near Sir George Chudleigh's house at Stretchleigh, in the

parish of Ermington, about twelve miles from Plymouth. The

circumstance is thus related by Westcote, one of the quaint old

Devonshire historians:

"In some part of this manor (Stretchleigh), there fell from above--I

cannot say from heaven--a stone of twenty-three pounds weight, with

a great and fearful noise in falling; first it was heard like unto

thunder, or rather to be thought the report of some great ordnance,

cannon, or culverin; and as it descended, so did the noise lessen,

at last when it came to the earth to the height of the report of a

peternel, or pistol. It was for matter like unto a stone singed, or

half-burned for lime, but being larger described by a richer wit, I

will forbear to enlarge on it."

The "richer wit" here alluded to was in all probability the author of

a pamphlet published at the time, which further describes this

aërolite as having fallen on January 10th, 1623, in an orchard, near

some men who were planting trees. It was buried in the ground three

feet deep, and its dimensions were three and a half feet long, two and

a half wide, and one and a half thick. The pamphlet also states that

pieces broken from off it were in the possession of many of the

neighboring gentry. {538} We may here remark that no specimen of this

stone is at present known to be in existence, and that although living

in the county where it fell, we have hitherto failed in tracing any of

the fragments here referred to. A few years later, in August, 1628,

several meteoric stones, weighing from one to twenty-four pounds, fell

at Hatford, in Berkshire; and in the month of May, 1680, several are

said to have fallen in the neighborhood of London.

The total number of aërolitic descents which up to this present time

have been observed to take place in Great Britain and Ireland is

twenty, of which four occurred in Scotland, and four in Ireland. The

largest and most noticeable of all these fell on December 13th, 1795,

near Wold Cottage, in the parish of Thwing, East Riding of Yorkshire.

Its descent was witnessed by two persons; and when the stone was dug

up, it was found to have penetrated through no less than eighteen

inches of soil and hard chalk. It originally weighed about fifty-six

pounds, but that portion of it preserved in the British Museum is

stated in the official catalogue to weigh forty-seven pounds nine

ounces and fifty-three grains--just double the weight of the

Devonshire aërolite.

When we come to inquire into the various opinions which have been held

in different ages respecting the origin of aërolites, and the power

which causes their descent, we must go back to the times of the

ancient Greeks, and we find that those of their philosophers who had

directed their attention to the subject had four theories to account

for this singular phenomenon. Some thought that meteoric stones had a

telluric origin, and resulted from exhalations ascending from the

earth becoming condensed to such a degree as to render them solid.

This theory was in after years revived by Kepler the astronomer, who

excluded fire-balls and shooting stars from the domain of astronomy;

because, according to his views, they were simply "meteors arising

from the exhalations of the earth, and blending with the higher

ether." Others, like Aristotle, considered that they were masses of

metal raised either by hurricanes, or projected by some volcano beyond

the limits of the earth's attraction, so becoming inflamed and

converted, for a time, into starlike bodies. Thirdly, a solar origin;

this, however, was freely derided by Pliny and several others, among

whom we may mention Diogenes of Apollonia, already alluded to as one

of the chroniclers of the aërolite of AEgos Potamos. He thus argues:

"Stars that are invisible, and consequently have no name, move in

space together with those that are visible. . . . These invisible

stars frequently fall to the earth and are extinguished, as the stony

star which fell burning at AEgos Potamos." This last opinion, it will

be seen, coincides, as far as it goes, almost exactly with the most

modern views on the subject.

As some of the Greeks derived the origin of meteorites from the sun

(probably from the fact of their sometimes falling during bright

sunshine), so we find, at the end of the seventeenth century, it was

believed by a great many that they fell from the moon. This conjecture

appears to have been first hazarded by an Italian philosopher, meeting

Paolo Maria Terzago, whose attention was specially directed to this

subject on the occasion of a meteoric stone falling at Milan in 1660,

and killing a Franciscan monk. Olbers, however, was the first to

treat this theory in a scientific manner, and soon after about fall of

an aërolite at Siena, in the year 1794, he began to examine the

question by the aid of the most abstruse mathematics, and after

several years' labor he succeeded in showing that, in order to reach

our earth, a stone would require to start from the moon at an initial

velocity 8,292 feet per second; then proceeding downward with

increasing speed, it would arrive on the earth with a {539} of 35,000

feet per second. But frequent measurements have shown that the

_actual_ rate of aërolites averages 114,000 feet, or about twenty-one

miles and a half per second, they were approved by these curious and

most elaborate calculations to have come from a fire greater distance

than that of our satellite. It is but fair to add that the question of

initial velocity, on which the whole value value of this so-called

"ballistic problem" depends, was investigative by three other eminent

geometricians, Biot, Laplace, and Poisson, who during ten or twelve

years were independently engaged is calculation. Biot's estimate was

8,282 feet in the second; Laplace, 7,862; and Poisson, 7,585--results

all approximating very closely with those stated by Olbers.

We have already observed, at the beginning of this paper, that

meteoric stones may fall at any moment, but observations, extending

over many years, have sometimes been brought forward to show that, as

far as locality is concerned, all countries are not equally liable to

these visitations. In other words, the large number of aërolites which

have been known to fall within a certain limited area has been

contrasted with the apparent rarity of such occurrences beyond these

limits. If it could be proved that the earth possessed more attractive

power in some places than in others, this circumstance might be

satisfactorily explained, but in default of any such evidence, the

advocates of this theory must rely solely upon statistics, which from

their very nature require to be taken with a certain amount of

reserve. Professor Shepard, in Silliman's American Journal, has

remarked that "fall of aërolites is confined principally to two zones;

the one belonging to America is bounded by 33° and 44° north latitude,

and is about 25° in length. Its direction is more or less from

north-east to south-west, following the general line of the Atlantic

Coast. Of all known occurrences of this phenomenon during the last

fifty years, 92.8 per cent, have taken place within these limits, and

mostly in the neighborhood of the sea. The zone of the eastern

continent--with the exception that it extends ten degrees more to the

north--lies between the same degrees of latitude, and follows a

similar north-east direction, but is more than twice the length of the

American zone. Of all the observed falls of aërolites, 90.9 per cent,

have taken place within this area, and were also concentrated in that

half of the zone which extends along the Atlantic."

On reference to a map, it will be seen that in the western continent

the so-called zone is simply confined to the United States--the most

densely inhabited portion of America. In like manner the eastern zone

leaves out the whole of desert Africa, Lapland, Finland, the chief

part of Russia, with an average of thirty-two inhabitants to each

square mile; Sweden and Norway, with only seventeen per mile; whilst

it embraces all the well-peopled districts of central Europe, most of

which, like England, are able to count between three and four hundred

persons to every mile of their territory. In fact, Professor Shepard's

statement may almost be resolved into a plain question of population,

for were an aërolite to fall in the midst of a desert, or in a thinly

peopled district, it is needless to point out how few the chances are

of its descent being ever noticed or recorded. That innumerable

aërolites do fall without attracting any attention, is clearly proved

by the number of discoveries continually taking place of metallic

masses which, from their locality and peculiar chemical composition,

could only be derived from some extra-terrestrial source. The great

size also of many of these masses entirely precludes the possibility

of their having been placed by human agency in the positions they have

been found to occupy--sometimes on the surface of the earth, but just

as frequently buried a few feet in the ground.

{540}

Thus the traveller Pallas found, in 1749, at Abakansk, in Siberia, the

mass of meteoric iron, weighing 1,680 lb., now in the Imperial Museum

at St. Petersburg. Another, lying on the plain of Tucuman, near

Otumpa, in South America, has been estimated, by measurement, to weigh

no less than 33,600 lb., or about fifteen tons; and one added last

year to the splendid collection of meteorites in the British Museum

weighs rather more than three and a half tons. It was found at

Cranboume, near Melbourne, and was purchased by a Mr. Bruce, with a

view to his presenting it to the British Museum, when, through some

misunderstanding, it was discovered that one half of it had been

already promised to the museum at Melbourne. In order, therefore, to

save it from any such mutilation, the trustees of our national museum

acquired and transferred to the authorities of the Melbourne

collection a smaller mass which had been sent in 1862 to the

International Exhibition. It weighed about 3,000 lb., and had been

found near Melbourne, in the immediate vicinity of the great

meteorite. The latter was then forwarded entire to London. In the

British Museum may also be seen a small fragment of an aërolite,

originally weighing 191 lb., which from time immemorial had been lying

at Elbogen, near Carlsbad, in Bohemia, and had always borne the

legendary appellation of "_der verwünschte Burggraf_," or the

enchanted Burgrave. The remainder of this mass is preserved in the

Imperial collection at Vienna. In Great Britain only two meteoric

masses (not seen to fall) have hitherto been discovered; one was found

about forty years ago near Leadhills, in Scotland; the other in 1861,

at Newstead, in Roxburghshire.

Several instances have at different times occurred in which stones

like aërolites have been found, and prized accordingly, until their

real nature was demonstrated by the aid of chemical analysis. One

valuable specimen, found a few years ago, was shown to have derived

its origin amongst the _scoriae_ of an iron foundry; another, picked

up in the Isle of Wight, turned out to be a nodule of iron pyrites,

similar in every respect to those which abound in the neighboring

chalk cliffs; and lastly, some aërolites of a peculiarly glassy

appearance were found shortly after, of which it may, perhaps, suffice

to say that the scene of this discovery was--Birmingham.

When we come to examine the composition of meteoric stones, we find in

various specimens a great diversity in their chemical structure. Iron

is the metal most invariably present, usually accompanied by a

consider percentage of nickel and cobalt; also five other metals,

chromium, copper, molybdenum, manganese, and tin; but of all these

iron is that which largely preponderates, forming sometimes as much as

ninety-six parts in the hundred. Rare instances have, however, been

recorded where the proportion of iron has sunk so low as to form only

two percent, and the deficiency thus caused has been made up by a

larger admixture of some earthy mineral, such as augite, hornblende,

or olivine. Other ingredients, like carbon, sulphur, alumina, etc.,

are also found to enter, in different proportions, into the

composition of aërolites; the total number all chemical elements

observed in them up to this present date the nineteen or twenty. It

has been well remarked by an able writer, that no _new_ substance has

hitherto come to us from without; and thus we find that all these

nineteen or twenty elements are precisely similar to those which are

distributed throughout the rocks and minerals of our earth; the

essential difference between the two classes of compounds--celestial

and terrestrial--being seen most clearly in the respective methods in

which the component parts are admixed.

In the outward appearance aërolites there is one characteristic so

constant that, out of the many hundred examples that have been

recorded, one only (as far as we can ascertain) has {541} been wanting

in it. We refer to the black fused crust or rind with which the

surface of meteoric stones is covered. It usually extends not more

than a few tenths of an inch into the substance of the stone, and is

supposed to result from the extreme rapidity with which they descend

into the oxygen of our atmosphere, causing them to undergo a slight

and partial combustion, which, however, from the short time

necessarily occupied in their descent, has not sufficient time to

penetrate beyond the surface. On cutting and polishing the stones, if

the smooth face is treated with nitric acid, it will in many cases be

found to exhibit lines and angular markings, commonly known by the

name of "widmannsted figures." These are tracings of imperfect

crystals, while the broad intermediate spaces, preserving their

polish, point out those portions of the stone which contain a larger

proportion of nickel than the rest of the mass. We may here add that

the noise said at times to accompany the fall of aërolites, does not

appear to be a constant characteristic, nor does the cause or exact

nature of it seem able to be definitely specified.

In conclusion, we cannot do better than advise those of our readers

who desire further information on this subject to take the earliest

opportunity--if they have not done so already--of paying a visit to

the magnificent collection of meteoric stones, contained in several

glass cases at the end of the mineral gallery at the British Museum.

The catalogue for the year 1856 gave a list of between 70 and 80

specimens; in 1863 this number had increased to 216, mainly through

the energy of the curator, Mr. Maskelyne; and since that date there

have been several further additions. Chief among continental museums

may be mentioned the Imperial collection at Vienna, as possessing a

series of specimens remarkable alike for their size and importance.

--------

From Good Words.

DELIVERANCE.

As some poor captive bird, too weak to fly,

Still lingers in its open cage, so I

My slavery own.

For evil makes a prison-house within;

The gloom of sin, and sorrow born of sin.

Doth weigh me down.

Ah! Christ, and wilt not thou regard my sighs,

Long wakeful hours, and lonely miseries,

And hopes forlorn?

Let not my fainting soul be thus subdued.

Nor leave thy child in darkened solitude.

All night to mourn!

He hears my prayer! the dreary night is done,

I feel the soft air and the blessed sun.

With heavenly beams.

He comes, my Lord! in raiment glistening white.

From pastures golden in the morning light

And crystal streams.

O let me come to thee!--from this dark place--

And see my gentle Shepherd face to face,

And hear his voice.

So shall these bitter tears no longer flow,

And thou shalt teach my secret heart to know

Thy sacred joys!

--------

{542}

ORIGINAL.

WHAT CAME OF A LAUGH ON A CHRISTMAS EVE.

"Beg your pardon, sir," said I, as soon as I could compose myself

sufficiently to speak; "I couldn't help it."

"Glad to hear it. Just what I want. I was debating with myself whether

it was sure for a laugh. I am looking for things that will make one

laugh; in short, buying up causes for laughter on a Christmas day.

There can be no doubt, you think, about this being funny?"

"Not a bit of it," said I.

"Well, I'll have one for every basket, then," said the old gentleman,

his eyes twinkling with delight, as he danced the toy up and down. It

was one of those jointed wooden monkeys that by means of a slide

performs the most comical evolutions around the top of a pole.

"You see," continued he, "I cannot always trust my own judgment.

There's no credit in my laughing, bless your heart. I'd be a monster,

yes, a monster, my dear sir, if I didn't. I'm just like this monkey as

you see him now in this position, ready to go over the other side with

the slightest provocation. I have everything that heart can wish, sir,

to laugh at and be happy; but they, poor dears, they are so far on the

minus side of merriment, as well they may be, that it takes a little

something extra, you see, to get a good hearty squeal out of them."

I became at once intensely interested in the "poor dears" alluded to.

The sight of the old gentleman was enough to make one do unheard-of

feats of heroism in favor of any person or thing of which he might

take the least notice. I ventured to suppose that they had lost

something or somebody lately, with the intention of offering my hand

or purse as the case might be.

"Can't say that they have," he replied, rubbing his shiny bald head.

"Being generally on the minus side of everything, including laughter,

they haven't anything to lose which you or I might think worth

keeping, except their lives, and somehow I think they've got used to

losing even them pretty comfortably."

I was perplexed, and muttered, "Curious sort of people, those."

"But interesting, you'll allow?" said he.

I replied that I had no doubt of it; and I meant it, for so charming

and open-hearted was this old gentlemen, that I was ready to subscribe

unhesitatingly to any asseveration he might be pleased to make;

"but--" I added, about to express my ignorance of the individuals in

question, when he interrupted me.

"Why--but? My Minnie, the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of my

life" (expressing the titles of that person in the largest capitals),

"and I held an ante-Christmas council this morning, and it was

proposed by the president, that is myself, and seconded by the said

Darling of the World and Sunshine of my life, and carried by an

overwhelming majority, including Bob, who said he went in for anything

good, that buts were unparliamentary when Christmas was concerned; and

so we called the roll, twenty in all, and there being no buts, they

all stood unchallenged, making twenty baskets, and now as many monkeys

to go in them. What do you think of it! Capital, wasn't it?"

I was certain it was, and was prepared to go any odds in its favor.

"What's more," he added, "they are going privately."

{543}

Being committed beyond all explanation, I said I was glad to hear that

too, "if Miss Minnie approves." This last supposition I made with a

deprecating cough, not being quite sure of the relation which the old

gentleman bore to the Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his

life.

"It was her own proposal," was his rejoinder, "and you can't imagine

what an immense relief it was to me too. It is more than I can stand

to get through with the "thank ye sir's," and the "much obliged's" and

the "long life to your honor's." I'm a baby, sir, in their presence,

and by the time the distribution is made I'm a spectacle of

unmitigated woe, as if I'd been to as many funerals as there are

baskets. I remember that as I was coming out from a widow and five

children, last Christmas, that rascal Bob saw me wiping my eyes, and

says he, 'Most of 'em dead, sir?' 'No, Bob,' says I, 'it's the smoke,

I suppose; they've a precious smoky chimney.' But when we got to the

next place--let me see--oh! yes, a man with a broken leg, the

scoundrel says to me, as he handed out the basket, 'Now, let us bury

another one, sir.' Not bad for, was it? I had such a good laugh on

each pair of stairs beforehand that I got through that one pretty

comfortably But it was a glorious proposal of my Minnie's, was it not,

that these should go privately? for we'll sit at home, and check them

off as they go in, for I've arranged that the messenger shall deliver

them by the watch, sir, and we'll imagine their surprise and their

happy faces, and the bringing out of the monkeys, and then we'll have

a roar and be jolly, and get rid of the thank ye's and all the rest of

it that chokes up a man's throat and turns him into a born baby." And

here the good-hearted old gentleman, in the fulness of his delight,

caused the monkey in his hand to perform a series of rapid gymnastics

over the top of his pole, beyond the powers of any monkey that ever

lived. He presented such a comical appearance in doing this that I

burst into another hearty laugh in which he as heartily joined.

"It is irresistibly amusing," said I, meaning the monkey.

"I knew it would be," he returned, his mind running upon the happy

scheme by which he might prevent his left hand knowing the deeds of

the right; "we will have twenty merry Christmas laughs all rolled into

one. There I'll be, as it were, on this side," here he took a position

on the floor opposite me, "and my Darling over there, as it were you,"

a distinction I acknowledged by a profound bow, "and Bob standing

behind her chair, as that rocking-horse stands behind you; and then,

watch in hand, we'll check them off: Number One, Widow Bums, two small

children; Number Two, Susy Bell, orphan girl, works in a carpet

factory and supports her two orphan sisters; Number Three, old Granny

Mullen, with consumptive son and three grand-children, and so on; and

there we'll have them all right before us, and they knowing nothing

about it (there's the beauty of it, all due to that blessed Darling of

the World and Sunshine of my life), and out will come the joint of

meat, ready cooked, and the mince-pie, and the plum-pudding with a

dozen of silver quarter dollars in each one, and the shoes and the

stockings, and I don't know what else besides, packed away by my

Darling's own sweet little hands, and last of all the monkey with a

label around his neck, with an inscription, say, for instance, 'From

Nobody in particular, with best wishes for a Merry Christmas.' There

you have it," added he, waving the monkey triumphantly in the air,

"and won't it be grand?"

"I'd give the world to see it," I exclaimed, quite carried away by the

old gentleman's enthusiastic manner. Just then the keeper of the

toy-shop handed me a package of marbles, tops, jewsharps, a pocket

spy-glass, and a few other things of a like nature calculated to make

glad the heart of {544} boys, which I had purchased for my little

nephew, Willie, in the country.

"This for you, Mr. Holiday; but if you wish, I'll send it around to

the doctor's," said the toy-vender.

"Lord bless my heart and soul!" exclaimed the old gentleman, seizing

me suddenly by both hands. "Not Alfred Holiday is it?"

"That is my name," said I.

"Nephew of Dr. Ben?"

"Nephew of Dr. Ben," I repeated.

"And how long have you been in the city?"

"About a week," said I. "I came up to spend Christmas with Uncle Ben

and Aunt Mary."

"And to take a look in at the Owl's Retreat, No. 9 Harmony place, of

course?"

I intimated my ignorance of the Retreat in question, and of my not

having the pleasure, etc.

"My house, man, my house," said he, shaking my hands up and down. "Dr.

Ben and I are old acquaintances; in fact, ever since my Minnie was--I

beg your pardon," added he, suddenly recollecting himself, and

producing a card from his vest pocket. "Name of Acres, Thomas Acres,

who, with the compliments of his daughter Minnie to the same effect,

_will_ be--_most_ happy--_to_ see--Mr. Alfred--_Holiday_--on

to-morrow _morning_--to _join_ in--_the_ grand--checking off--_of_

the--twenty baskets--_and_ their--contents--including--monkeys--and

of course stay to dinner."

If the old gentleman's cordial manner had any weight in deciding my

acceptance of the invitation, it must be confessed that the curiosity

to see the "Darling of the World and the Sunshine of his life" added

not a little to it. Promising to be on hand at No. 9 before eleven

o'clock, at which hour the checking off was to begin, I bade my

new-found friend good-morning and went home.

But it was very provoking not to know more of the "Darling and

Sunshine" This is him him him him question. Standing in such a light

to such a father, she was, of course, a peerless being. Age--say,

twenty. Height--medium, I am five feet ten. 10 Blonde or

brunette--difficult to determine. Sunshine would seem to indicate

blonde, yet darling might be either. Good, amiable, witty,

accomplished--not a doubt of it. Beautiful name too, said I, as I

scribbled it in every style of the caligraphic art, thereby destroying

no small amount of my uncle's property in fine gilt-edged note paper.

Has she suitor already. Hoity-toity, Mr. Alfred Holiday, you are

castle-building on a small amount of material, it seems to me; and if

she have, what affair is that of yours? a question which that

imaginative young gentlemen finding himself unable to solve fell into

a fit of despondency, and went to bed in a despairing state of mind.

Punctual to the appointed hour I walked into Harmony place, a quiet

unpretentious street, and open the gate of No. 9. There had been both

a rain and heavy frost in the night, and the trees and shrubs, clothed

in a complete armor of ice, sparkled and glittered in the bright

sunshine. Unfortunately, the ground shared in this universal covering,

and being under the impression that someone was looking from behind

the curtains, who might possibly be the Darling of the World and the

Sunshine of the life of Mr. Thomas Acres, I insanely endeavored to

walk upon the glassy pavement with careless ease, as if it were the

most ordinary ground in the world. I now advise my bitterest enemy to

try it. In an unguarded moment my feet slipped, and I came down in the

most unpleasant manner into a sitting posture upon the ground. I

thought I heard the sound of a clear ringing laugh following

immediately upon my ignominious fall. I hoped it was from No. 10 or

No. 8; yet my heart misgave me as Mr. Acres, with a half dozen

superfluous bows, divided between his daughter and myself, introduced

me, and a pair of dark, deep eyes, in which I thought I detected a

merry twinkle, quietly but warmly acknowledged my presence.

{545}

"Mr. Alfred Holiday, my child, our old friend, Doctor Holiday's

nephew; Mr. Holiday, my daughter Minnie, the Darling of the World and

the Sunshine of my life, as I have already told you, and the Dove of

this Owl's Retreat."