One's first impression of the booklet that so greatly has enriched the Christmas festival of Denmark and Norway, is likely to be disappointing. At the time of Brorson the festival was frequently desecrated by a ceaseless round of worldly amusements. People attended the festival services of the church and spent the remainder of the season in a whirl of secular and far from innocent pleasures. With his Pietistic views Brorson naturally deplored such a misuse of the season. And his first hymn, therefore, sounds an earnest call to cease these unseemly pleasures and to use the festival in a Christian way. Cast out all worldly pleasure This blessed Christmastide, And seek the boundless treasure That Jesus doth provide. But although such a warning may have been timely, then as now, it hardly expresses the real Christmas spirit. In the next hymn, however, he at once strikes the true festival note in one of the most triumphant Christmas anthems in the Danish or any other language. This blessed Christmastide we will, With heart and mind rejoicing, Employ our every thought and skill, God's grace and honor voicing. In Him that in the manger lay We will with all our might today Exult in heart and spirit, And hail Him as our Lord and King Till earth's remotest bounds shall ring With praises of His merit. A little Child of Jesse's stem, And Son of God in heaven, To earth from heaven's glory came And was for sinners given. It so distressed His loving heart To see the world from God depart And in transgression languish, That He forsook His home above And came to earth in tender love To bear our grief and anguish. Therefore we hymn His praises here And though we are but lowly, Our loud hosannas everywhere Shall voice His mercy holy. The tent of God is now with man, And He will dwell with us again When in His name assembling. And we shall shout His name anew Till hell itself must listen to Our Christmas song with trembling. And though our song of joy be fraught With strains of lamentation, The burden of our cross shall not Subdue our jubilation. For when the heart is most distressed, The harp of joy is tuned so best Its chords of joy are ringing, And broken hearts best comprehend The boundless joy our Lord and Friend This Christmas day is bringing. Hallelujah, our strife is o'er! Who would henceforth with sadness Repine and weep in sorrow sore This blessed day of gladness. Rejoice, rejoice, ye saints on earth, And sing the wonders of His birth Whose glory none can measure. Hallelujah, the Lord is mine, And I am now by grace divine The heir of all His treasure! Equally fine but more quietly contemplative is the next hymn in the collection which takes us right to the focal point of Christmas worship, the stable at Bethlehem.