Gold is now every man’s business. The earth is yielding it by the hand-full and spade-full. Already nearly fifty millions sterling have been raised by the rude exertions of a part of the population who might have been starving upon six-shillings a-week, in delving and ditching. And it is a wonderful sight to see thousands upon thousands of brisk, brawny, and sturdy men, in their shirt-sleeves washing the productive earth, and rocking the gold to rest in their own pockets—the finest of all kinds of cradling. Boys and girls too even lend their aid. The boys are trained in the digging, and the girls in the washing—the boys find the “pockets” as they are called, and the girls make purses for it. Along the banks of the various creeks, it is delightful to see the throng of men and boys, and girls and women, busy with tin dishes and cradles, making their ounces and half-ounces of “pure, bright, slippery gold” in a-day. [Illustration: _Christmas-day in Australia_] But one of the most beautiful of all sights is to see a “Christmas Day” at the diggings. Here, in Australia, there are no “snow-flakes thickly falling,”—no drifts twenty or thirty feet high—no coughing, wheezings, and sneezings—no swamps and sore throats, quinseys and influenzas—no noses blue and fingers numbed—dark skies and piercing north-easters—but lovely, balmy, warm, clear, bright sunshine, and the plum-pudding, and the roast beef, and the mince pies, and all the other delicious viands of which England is so proud, smoke upon the grass sward, beneath the delicious shade of overhanging boughs, and redolent with all the ambrosial gifts of nature. And joy reigns there in all its fullest majesty: and love reigns there in all its holiest excess of affection: and hope reigns there, looking boldly upon the future. Nor is faith absent entirely—though the sound of the “church-going bell” is not heard—although no organ peal ascends in the fretted vault—yet the mind of the good man turns to “God and to his worship,” and the joyful time of merry Christmas is not spent without remembrance of Him who brought “peace on earth and good-will to man.” And thus it is that Christmas Day at the Diggings is a true holiday to all, and that joy and mirth abound, to the delight of hearts who do not forget their old homes and their old religion, but pledge them with prayers, and blessings, and songs of gladness. So let us remain, my young friends, wherever it may please a good God to cast us—true to our country, to our religion, to our institutions, our old friends, and to all that we loved, or that is worthy of love: and let us never forget our old customs—our “Easters,” our “Whitsuntides,” and our “Christmases,” and all those old things which our infancy, our youth, and our manhood have consecrated to the best of thoughts and of feelings, and which have engendered so many happy hours among us. “Hurrah! then,” says Old Peter Parley, “for a Christmas Day at the Diggings.” [Illustration] The Owl.