December 24th. [Sidenote: CHRISTMAS EVE.] Christmas Eve! What happy memories are recalled by the mention of that name! How much of youthful promise it brings back to the weary mind and to the aching heart! How potent is the charm, how magical the influence! A beam of light has fallen within this little ice-bound vessel, and from the promised morn we catch the same inspiration that has come to all mankind since "that bright and lovely star" first rose to the shepherds of Judea; for wherever we are on this wide, wide world, we find in the day the symbol which binds us all to one cherished hope. Gladness springs into being with the rising sun, and the Christmas bells, sending their merry voices on the wings of the returning light, encircle the earth in one continuous peal. Their chimes ring out glad tidings everywhere. The joyous music rejoices the lonely watcher on the sea, and the hunter who warms himself beside the embers of his smouldering fire; it penetrates the humble cabin of the slave and the hut of the weary emigrant; it reaches the wanderer on the steppes of Tartary, and the savage in the forest; it consoles the poor and the sorrowing, and the rich and the powerful; and to the sick and to the well alike, wherever they may be under the sun, it brings a blessed brightness;--and it gleams, too, .... "on the eternal snows, beneath the Polar Star, And with a radiant Cross it lights the Southern deep afar. And Christmas morn is but the dawn, the herald of a day That circles in its boundless love, no winter, no decay." I have never seen the ship so bright and cheerful. Sundry boxes have been produced from out-of-the-way corners, and from the magical manner of their appearance one might think that Santa Claus had charged himself with a special mission to this little world, before he had begun to fill the shoes and stockings and to give marriage portions to destitute maidens, in the dear old lands where he is patron of the "Christ Kinkle Eve," and where the silver cord binding the affections is freshened once a year with the Christmas offering. The cabin-table fairly groans under a mass of holiday fare,--kindly mementos from those who are talking about us to-night around the family fire-side. Shoals of bon-bons, and "Christmas cakes" of every imaginable kind, bearing all sorts of tender mottoes, come out of their tin cases, setting off prospective indigestion against glad hearts. [Sidenote: CHRISTMAS DAY.]