Not yet sunrise! What a sweet gray delicate light glimmers in the air, and how fresh and cool the universal hue over every object. The sky is stainless, pure as the thoughts of Innocence, and bright as the dreams of the happy, although it wants the splendor of the risen sun. Faint, faint, as the memory of other days to the aged are those few white stars throbbing in the mid-sky, sinking deeper and deeper in the lustrous heavens. In the east is a wreathed cloud, just above the spot where the sun is expected, and evidently awaiting the period for it to burn under the glance of the orbed God, like the arch-angel nearest to the Throne of the Mighty. The west is dusky with the outlines of the forest upon it misty and undefined, as if the breath of the vanished night was still lingering there. Nothing is there to arrest my gaze; but the east draws my eye toward it with the power of a magnet. The east! solemn and mysterious spot in the wide heavens! how it sways, with its mighty influence, the whole human race. Upon its brow did the splendid Star of the Nativity blaze out with its sudden glory, upon the astonished eyes of the shepherds upon the hill-side, and there was the group of angels unveiled to the cowering mortals who heard, as they shuddered upon their mother earth, the glad anthem of “Peace on earth—good-will to men,” pealing through the brightened heavens, and echoing even down to the dim, night-clad scene around them. From the east did the steps of the “wise men” come when they brought their gifts of “frankincense and myrrh” to the hallowed infant in the manger. And even now, as the first level ray streams across the desert, does the wild Arab check the lofty step of his camel, and kneeling toward the east, join in the praise then ascending from a thousand minarets, that “God is great and Mahomet is his Prophet.” To the east then will I turn, and with no infidel praise in my heart, but with the feeling of pure gratitude to that beneficent Being who has watched my pillow through the “dangers of the past night,” I gaze upon it. Ha! that sudden flash, like the leaping of flame upon the altar! How the wreathed cloud starts into light—how it brightens, how it glows! like the iron in the furnace, how it turns to sudden red! Now o’er its downy surface a crimson flush is spread! now its edges burn with gold, it is a glorious banner now, burning, gleaming, flaring, glaring on the east’s illuminated brow.