"Mr. Dawson asks how Englishmen spend Christmas in China. Well, it depends. Some spend it at the ports dog-racing and eating pudding--having a night of it. The missionaries generally take no notice of it. In our mission we hold one of the semi-annual dedication-of-children services on Christmas. We think it a very appropriate day for the recognition of the sacredness of the gift of trust of children. The idea is a Chinese one, originating with one of our Christians, and we adopted it as the day for the custom. Tomorrow will be Christmas Day, and I have come out twenty miles this evening to hold a service of that kind with the semi-annual communion as it happens. It will be a cold, cheerless room in a clay-built cabin down in the corner of a bare valley in a trap and basalt district with sparse vegetation and a bare aspect. A cold spot with a handful of Christians, bearing their testimony alone out on the margin of our field of work. I hope to see 40 or 50 patients up to sundown, and then have worship with them at night. That will be my Christmas. This evening--in the city--all the children and our wives are having a Christmas tree in the theological lecture-room, and on Tuesday next I guess we'll have our dinner. John Bull, Paddy, Sandy, and Taffy all seem to agree in _that_ feature. My Sunday will only be a sample of others. So it goes--working away. Now I must say goodbye. Many thanks and many good wishes." A VISIT TO CHRISTMAS ISLAND. Letters were received in December, 1887, from H.M.S. _Egeria_, Commander Pelham Aldrich, containing particulars of a visit she had recently made to Christmas Island, which she was ordered to explore for scientific purposes. Christmas Island is situated in the Indian Ocean, in latitude 11 deg. south, longitude 105 deg. 30' east; it is 1,100 feet above the sea, is twelve miles long and eight miles broad. The officers and men told off for exploring purposes found that the whole place was composed of coral and rock; notwithstanding this, however, it is covered almost completely with trees and shrubs, the trees, which are of large dimensions, seeming to grow literally out of the rock itself, earth surfaces being conspicuous by their absence. It is uninhabited by human beings, nor could any traces of animals be discovered, but seabirds swarm over every part of the island, and about four hundred wood pigeons were shot by the explorers while they remained there. No fruits or vegetable matter fit for consumption could, however, be found, nor the existence of any supply of fresh water, and the belief is that the vegetation of the island is dependent for nourishment on the dews and the heavy rains that fall. CHRISTMAS IN AMERICA.