Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards that City upon
Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we loved, among us. City of the
Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are gathered together at this time, and in the
Presence that is here among us according to the promise, we will receive, and not
dismiss, thy people who are dear to us!
Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight, so solemnly, so beautifully
among the living children by the fire, and can bear to think how they departed from us.
Entertaining angels unawares, as the Patriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious
of their guests; but we can see them--can see a radiant arm around one favourite neck, as
if there were a tempting of that child away. Among the celestial figures there is one, a
poor misshapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said it
grieved her much to leave him here, alone, for so many years as it was likely would
elapse before he came to her-- being such a little child. But he went quickly, and was laid
upon her breast, and in her hand she leads him.
There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath a burning sun,
and said, "Tell them at home, with my last love, how much I could have wished to kiss
them once, but that I died contented and had done my duty!" Or there was another, over
whom they read the words, "Therefore we commit his body to the deep," and so
consigned him to the lonely ocean and sailed on. Or there was another, who lay down to
his rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O shall they
not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time!
There was a dear girl--almost a woman--never to be one--who made a mourning
Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent City. Do we
recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not be heard, and falling into that
last sleep for weariness? O look upon her now! O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her
changeless youth, her happiness! The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but
she, more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise for ever!"
We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often pictured the
changes that were to come upon our lives, and merrily imagined how we would speak,
and walk, and think, and talk, when we came to be old. His destined habitation in the City
of the Dead received him in his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas
remembrance? Would his love have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent,
sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished
places in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal
hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing!
The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a rosy path, as if the
Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more moments, and it sinks, and night
comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the
shapelessly-diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-
steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass,
entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there
