I always liked to think that some day when Augustus Caesar was on a state visit to the Temple of Fortune some attentive clerk handed him down the roll which had just come in and said, "From Syria, your Highness!" that he might have a chance to say something to the Emperor; that the Emperor thanked him, and, in his courtly way, opened the roll so as to seem interested; that his eye caught the words "Bethlehem--village near Jerusalem," and the figures which showed the number of the people and of the children and of all the infants there. Perhaps. No matter if not. Sixty years after, Augustus' successor, Nero, set fire to Rome in a drunken fit. The Temple of Fortune caught the flames, and our roll, with Bethlehem and the count of Joseph's possessions twisted and crackled like any common rag, turned to smoke and ashes, and was gone. That is what such statistics come to! Five hundred years after, the whole scene is changed. The Church of Christ, which for hundreds of years worshipped under-ground in Rome, has found air and sunlight now. It is almost five hundred years after Paul enters Rome as a prisoner, after Nero burned Rome down, that a monk of St. Andrew, one of the more prominent monasteries of the city of Rome, walking through that great market-place of the city--which to this hour preserves most distinctly, perhaps, the memory of what Rome was--saw a party of fair-haired slaves for sale among the rest. He stops to ask where they come from, and of what nation they are; to be told they are "Angli." "Rather Angeli," says Gregory,--"rather angels;" and with other sacred _bon-mots_ he fixes the pretty boys and pretty girls in his memory. Nor are these familiar plays upon words to be spoken of as mere puns. Gregory was determined to attempt the conversion of the land from which these "angels" came. He started on the pilgrimage, which was then a dangerous one; but was recalled by the pope of his day, at the instance of his friends, who could not do without him. A few years more and this monk is Bishop of Rome. True to the promise of the market-place, he organizes the Christian mission which fulfils his prophecy. He sends Austin with his companions to the island of the fair-haired slave boys; and that new step in the civilization of that land comes, to which we owe it that we are met in this church, nay, that we live in this land this day. So far has the star of the baby of Bethlehem risen in a little more than five centuries. A Christian dominion has laid its foundations in the Eternal City. And you and I, gentle reader, are what we are and are where we are because that monk of St. Andrew saw those angel boys that day in a Roman market-place. THE SURVIVOR'S STORY. Fortunately we were with our wives. It is in general an excellent custom, as I will explain if opportunity is given. First, you are thus sure of good company.