From far and near all were assembled, and Ellen, more than usually happy and active, was here, there, and everywhere among her parent's tenants, interchanging, exchanging, and changing hands, words, and deeds, as became a lady of her distinction and qualities of head and heart. What a pity that ever a cloud should have arisen to change the sunny smiles and cheerful welcomes of that happy Christmas Day. It often happens in terrestrial things that at the very moment of our utmost felicity, when the cup of social enjoyment is at its highest point, touching the very lips of him who is ready to taste the draught, then an unforeseen blow prostrates, in a moment, all the excitement, pleasure, and enjoyment of that mortal delight in which we had been engaged. This may be very beneficial to us all; but it is at the time confessedly severe, and it is only calm reflection, gradual wisdom, and gently sustained grace that lifts the broken-hearted to the calmer wisdom of acquiescence in the wisdom of the wise Disposer of all things. Stoicism may harden a man's heart to such a degree, that his philosophical mind may become indifferent to almost everything; and a species of fatalism may usurp all tenderness, nature, affection, and every quality of enjoyment with which God has gifted our souls and bodies. But stoicism, thank God, is not the Christian's creed, who looks to the law and the testimony, and the love of God for all his creatures, but most of all for man, for whom God has himself made a sacrifice, such as angels who are not partakers thereof can scarcely describe; such as souls, lost and found, can, indeed, only appreciate. Oh, let me be the poorest fly of the sunbeam, thankful for the warmth of heavenly rays which expand my wings, rather than the chilly tenant of the gloomy, tomb-like monastery, which can only be made warm by artificial means, and then gives neither confidence nor comfort to the heart. One ray of love is worth twenty thousand torches, though they might cast a glare of light upon a murky night. One ray of love, of the daylight from on high, shall put into darkness all the candles of the altars of superstition, though they may burn with national devotion through the largest empires of the world. So the heaviness of a sudden blow coming unexpectedly upon a Christian may cast him down for a night, but not for ever. God feels for him who can feel for others, and will lift him up from his fall, and restore him to the light. These may be comforting words to some and foreboding ones to others, and they who read this narrative may be trembling on the breath of suspense, knowing what is coming in the course of the description, and may imagine this work is to end in the dismal sorrow of some dreadful catastrophe.