ting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it into the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone-too nervous to bear witnesses-to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it while they were merry with the goose-a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute

Mrs. Cratchit entered-flushed, but smiling proudlywith the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

O, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass-two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed :— "A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless

us!"

Which all the family re-echoed.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. CHARLES DICKENS.

SUNRISE.

UCH, however, as we are indebted to our observatories

MUCH,

for elevating our conceptions of the heavenly bodies, they present even to the unaided sight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble to describe. I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night-the sky was without a cloud-the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre, but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the naked eye, in the south; the steady pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north, to their sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint

streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state.

I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient Magians, who in the morning of the world went up to the hill-tops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of His hand. But I am filled with amazement when I am told that in this enlightened age, and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, "there is no God." EDWARD EVERETT.

THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS.

(Abridged.)

(Suggested from the well-known picture of Mr. Holman Hunt, in which the uplifted form of Christ, resting with extended arms from His labor in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, throws upon the wall of the Virgin's house a figure of a Cross.)

IGHT and Shadow! Shadow and Light!

L'

Twins that were born at the birth of the sun!

One the secret of all things bright;

The secret of all things sombre, one.

One the joy of the radiant day;

One the spell of the dolorous night:
One at the dew-fall bearing sway;
One at the day-break, rosy and white.

Sister and brother, born of one mother,

Made of a thought of the Infinite One, Made by the wisdom of God-and none otherIn times when the times were not begun.

One with the morning star for its gem,
Glad Eösphorus, herald of beams;
One that wears for its diadem

Pale, sad Hesperus, planet of dreams.

One for the glory and one for the gloom;
One to show forth and one to shroud;
One for the birth and one for the tomb;
One for the clear sky and one for the cloud.

Sister and brother, for ever and ever,

Nowise disparted, and nowhere a-twain; Mysteries no man's thinking shall sever; Marvels none can miss or explain.

Light, which without a shadow shines not!
Shadow, which shows not unless by light!
(For that which we see to sight combines not,
Except by the sides that escape the sight.)

Is this the parable? this the ending?

That nothing lives for us unless with a foil; That all things show by contrast and blendingPleasure by Pain, and Rest by Toil?

Strength by Weakness, and Gladness by Sorrow; Hope by Despair, and Peace by Strife;

The Good by the Evil, the Day by the Morrow; Love by Hatred, and Death by Life?