To me Sirius will always remain associated with the memory of Christmas sleigh-bells and the thrilling creak of runners on crisp, hard snow, for it was during a drive home from a “Christmas-tree” in a country church that I first made the acquaintance of that imperial star. It seemed to me more brilliantly beautiful than any of the dazzling gifts that had hung so magically on the illuminated tree. Its splendor is unearthly, putting diamonds and sapphires to shame. How people can live and be happy without ever gazing at such an object surpasses the understanding of any one who has once beheld and yielded to its charm. The splendors of Aladdin’s Cave are for children, and fade in the light of advancing life, but these glories of the universe are for men and women, and grow brighter with the years. The renown of Sirius is as ancient as the human race. There has never been a time or a people in which or by whom it was not worshipped, reverenced, and admired. To the builders of the Egyptian temples and pyramids it was an object as familiar as the sun itself. Its name is usually regarded as being derived from the Greek Σείριος, the “Bright or Shining One,” but it is also thought that it may be connected with Osiris. The familiar title of the “Dog Star” comes from its association with the _dies caniculariæ_ of the Romans. “As the movable Egyptian year,” says George Cornewell Lewis, “was held to have originally begun at the heliacal rising of the Dog Star, which was contemporary with the ordinary commencement of the inundation of the Nile, this period was, by late writers, entitled the Canicular, or Sothiac, period, Sothis being the Egyptian name for the Dog Star.” Norman Lockyer identifies Sirius with the goddess Isis, or Hathor, who was personified by that star, and the temple of Isis at Dendera was, he avers, built to watch it. “It has been pointed out, times without number,” he adds, “that the inscriptions indicate that by far the most important astronomical event in Egyptian history was the rising of the star Sirius at this precise time.” Sirius has sometimes been identified with the “Mazzaroth” of the Book of Job.