THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE [Illustration: James Lane Allen] THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE AN IDYL OF IMMORTALITY BY JAMES LANE ALLEN PORTLAND MAINE THOMAS BIRD MOSHER MDCCCCXIV COPYRIGHT JAMES LANE ALLEN 1914 TO THOSE WHO KNOW THEY HAVE NO SOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSE YET HOPE FOR THE BEST AND LIVE FOR IT THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE In a somewhat different and in a much briefer form _The Last Christmas Tree_ appeared several years ago in _The Saturday Evening Post_. THE LAST CHRISTMAS TREE Life on this earth, my children, means warmth. Do not forget that: whatever else it may be, life as we know it is warmth. Every living earthly thing is on fire and every fire is perpetually going out. When the warmth, when the fire, which is within us and which is perpetually going out, goes out for good, that is the end of us. It is the end of us as far as the life which we derive from the planet is ourselves. If our planetary life is our only life, when the planetary fire within us dies out, all of us dies out. If planetary fire be not our only vital flame, vital energy, then planetary dust and ashes are not the complete end of us, not the last word of our terrible lovable human story. And if this be true, what next may come, what kind of story will then begin with ourselves as its characters, what sort of existence for us will emerge from planetary extinction--that has always been the one greatest question, solicitude, hope, help, song, prayer of our race. It has never been more a problem than now when we know more about many other things than we have ever known yet can find out nothing about this thing and were never so impatient of our ignorance.