There was nothing incongruous or unnatural in the contemporary love growing up in her heart for Hemstead, though it is possible that some may so think. In some minds the ideas of love and passion seem inseparable, and they regard religion as something far removed. These are but the right wing of that sinister class who jumble their passions and religion together, and, in pious jargon and spiritual double entendre, half conceal and half convey the base meaning of their hearts. In others, love, or what with them goes by the name, is equally inseparable from management and match-making, trousseaux and settlements,--concerns pertaining to earth, and very earthy, it must be admitted. No doubt many excellent, solid people would regard Lottie's spiritual condition with grave suspicion, and ask, disapprovingly, "What business have two such DIFFERENT loves to be originating in her heart at the same time?" But, in the term "different," they beg the question. Where is the antagonism? Where is even the dissimilarity? Are not these two impulses of the heart near akin, rather? and does not a truer and deeper philosophy of life teach that love for a human object may be as certainly God's will as love towards Himself? Have these solid, excellent people aught to say against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife's devotion and the mother's tenderness? These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have the day without the dawn. At any rate, it would appear that Heaven was making the match between Hemstead and Lottie,--making it as the spring comes on in northern latitudes, subtilely, imperceptibly, and yet speedily. Just how or when it came about, they did not know; but when they met on that Christmas morning, the peace and gladness of an assured and reciprocal love smiled from each other's eyes. They needed no explanations. Frank Hemstead's face had ever been as easily interpreted as his honest words; and he now had taught Lottie's face to tell the truth. A blessed truth it revealed to him that Christmas day. As he entered the pulpit that morning his face was radiant with the purest human love, as well as love to God. So far from being incongruous, the one seemed to kindle and intensify the other. Though his sermon was simplicity itself he spoke as one inspired. His message now was a gospel, and came to his hearers as the angel's announcement (which was his text) to the shepherds. But his closing words were searching, and sent many of his hearers home thoughtful and conscience-smitten, as well as cheered by the great hope which Christmas day should ever bring to the world.