"My dear," said I, "sometimes it seems to me as if all our life were unreal. We go to church, and the things that we hear are either true or false. If they are true, what things they are! For instance, these Advent sermons. If we are looking for _that_ coming, we ought to feel and live differently from what we do! Do we really believe what we hear in church? or is it a dream?" "I _do_ believe," said my wife earnestly--she is a good woman, my wife--"yes, I _do_ believe, but it is just as you say. Oh, dear! I feel as if I am very worldly--I have so many things to think of!" and she sighed. So do I; for I knew that I, too, was very worldly. After a pause I said: "Suppose Christ should really come this Christmas and it should be authoritatively announced that He would be here to-morrow?" "I think," said my wife, "there would be some embarrassment on the part of our great men, legislators, and chief councilors, in anticipation of a personal interview. Fancy a meeting of the city council to arrange a reception for the Lord Jesus Christ!" "Perhaps," said I, "He would refuse all offers of the rich and great. Perhaps our fashionable churches would plead for His presence in vain. He would not be in palaces." "Oh!" said my wife earnestly, "if I thought our money separated us from Him, I would give it _all_--yes, _all_--might I only see Him." She spoke from the bottom of her heart, and for a moment her face was glorified. "You _will_ see Him some day," said I, "and the money we are willing to give up at a word from Him will not keep Him from us." That evening the thoughts of the waking hours mirrored themselves in a dream. I seemed to be out walking in the streets, and to be conscious of a strange, vague sense of _something_ just declared, of which all were speaking with a suppressed air of mysterious voices. There was a whispering stillness around. Groups of men stood at the corners of the street, and discussed an impending something with suppressed voices. I heard one say to another: "_Really_ coming! What? to-morrow?" And the others said: "Yes, to-morrow; on Christmas Day He will be here." It was night. The stars were glittering with a keen and frosty light; the shops glistened in their Christmas array; but the same sense of hushed expectancy pervaded every thing. There seemed to be nothing doing; and each person looked wistfully upon his neighbor as if to say, Have you heard? Suddenly, as I walked, an angel-form was with me, gliding softly by my side. The face was solemn, serene, and calm. Above the forehead was a pale, tremulous, phosphorous, radiance of light, purer than any on earth--a light of a quality so different from that of the street-lamps, that my celestial attendant seemed to move in a sphere alone. Yet, though I felt awe, I felt a sort of confiding love as I said: "Tell me, is it really true? _Is_ Christ coming?" "HE IS," said the angel. "To-morrow He will be here!" "What joy!" I cried.