The pastor’s house is, when you look at it in front, a long, low building, with a prodigiously high thatched roof. If you go to the gable, however, you will find that there are actually three stories in it, two being in the said roof. The middle of the ground floor is occupied by a large hall, which gives access to all the chambers, and has a branch leading to one end of the edifice. At this end there is a door, on passing by which, you find yourself in the place where the cows, pigs, and other animals are kept. When I speak of the other animals, I should except the storks, who, on their arrival in spring, from Egypt or elsewhere, find their usual basket-work habitations about the chimneys all ready to receive them. One would imagine, by the way, that they brought from their winter quarters something like the superstition of the old inhabitants of the Nile valley, so great is the worship of the Germans for these birds, and so enthusiastically is their arrival hailed. No one would ever dare to murder a stork. A similar protection is extended to nightingales. The consequense is, that, being unmolested, the “solemn bird of night” becomes very tame. In the suburbs of Hamburg are numerous villas, and there, in a friend’s garden, I have passed and repassed under the bough where, within the reach of my arm, a nightingale was singing. He not only showed no fear, but, being of a vain character, as nightingales naturally are, he strained his little throat the more that he saw I listened to him. But to return to the pastor’s house. In the corner of the hall of which I have spoken, was the “Christmas Tree.” Some of those who read these sketches may have seen an engraving of Luther on a Christmas evening, his wife and children beside him. The tree represented in that engraving was the exact prototype of the one I now saw. It was of a species of fir, and on all its branches were fixed small wax-tapers. These, at the given hour, were lighted. Immediately, a procession of the village-school children entered, and placed themselves in order. Then the pastor appeared, and after a short prayer gave out a psalm. He conducted the music himself, and, as he had for some time been teaching the young people a little singing, it was much better than usual, more especially as there were no braying men to spoil it. The air was that brave old composition of the great reformer, _Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_ (“A strong tower is our God”). Nothing nobler in psalmody exists. After another short prayer, and a few words by way of speech, sundry rewards and prizes were distributed. The greater part of these were the handiwork of the pastor’s family. I refer, of course, to the useful articles of dress and other things, which domestic female hands know how to sew, and knit, and embroider. Many tracts were distributed. A blessing was pronounced, and the children withdrew.