perhaps you might like to hear from us once again, we are glad to write you of our pleasant and prosperous winter of literary work, brought about by the grand C. L. S. C. movement. Our meetings are held on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, the programs comprise essays, music, readings and conversation, and are social and very delightful, showing a marked improvement on our ‘feeble beginning’ a year ago. Two new circles have been formed this winter, one, the ‘Delphic,’ having forty or more members. On the 18th of December we held our first public meeting in honor of ‘Our Poet’s’ (Mr. John G. Whittier) birthday, to which we invited the ‘Delphic’ circle, also the ‘Thursday Evening Club,’ an older literary society of Amesbury, and other friends, about three hundred in all. Members from the three circles took part in the program, which had been carefully prepared. We were greatly pleased to receive from Mr. W. C. Wilkinson a paper entitled ‘Whittier at the Receipt of Customs,’ which was read to us by his friend, the Rev. P. S. Evans, of Amesbury. As Mr. Whittier, owing to a previous engagement, could not be present with us, resolutions were drawn up and sent to him, as follows: “‘DEAR MR. WHITTIER;—The three literary circles, together with a goodly company of the citizens of Amesbury as their invited guests, are met to celebrate the return of your birthday. We have talked together of all that you have done and suffered in the cause of freedom and of truth. We have listened to many of your words, rendered by living voices. We have looked at your ‘counterfeit presentment’ as it has hung before us covered with evergreen—our New England laurel. Because you were not with us in person, to receive them, we desire to send you our most hearty congratulations on the completion of your seventy-seventh year. We rejoice that after your “Thirty Years’ War” you have been spared to enjoy so many years of peace, and that in the prolonged “Indian Summer,” the “Halcyon” days of your life, you are receiving a well deserved tribute of reverence and affection. We think ourselves happy to have known you, not merely as a poet, but as a citizen, a neighbor, and a friend. “‘We feel we can not better voice our sentiments than by retaliating upon you the words you once so fitly spoke of one who has been a co-laborer with you in the cause of humanity—the mild “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.” “‘“The world may keep his honored name, The wealth of all his varied powers; A stronger claim has love than fame, And he himself is only ours.”’ “‘In the name and by the request of three hundred citizens of your own village.’ “To which Mr. Whittier responded with the following charming letter: “‘OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, 12 MO., 23, 1884.