Of the holy mother watching over her holy child, while the stars shone in upon his humble bed in the manger,--of that child, in early boyhood, sitting in the temple confounding grave men, learned in the logic of the world, by the simple intuitions of a heart felled with the presence of God,--of the way of life led by that mother's child, when thirty years had set the seal of the divine manhood on his brow. How after the day's hard travel, he stopped to rest at the cottage home of Martha and Mary,--how he took up little children and blessed them,--how the blind began to see, the deaf to hear, the dead to live, at sound of his voice,--how on the calm of evening, in a modest room, he took his last supper with the Twelve, John resting on his bosom, Judas scowling in the background,--how, amid the olives of Gethsemane, at dead of night, while his disciples slept, he went through the unutterable agony alone until an angel's hand wiped the sweat of blood from his brow,--how he died upon the felon's tree, the heavens black above him, the earth beneath him dark with the vast multitude,--and how, on the clear Sabbath morn he rose again, and called the faithful woman, who had followed him to the sepulcher, by the name which his mother bore, spoken in the old familiar tone--"Mary!" How he walked the earth in bodily form eighteen hundred years ago, shedding the presence of God around him, and even now he walked it still in spiritual body, shedding still upon sin-stricken and sorrowing hearts the presence and the love of God the Father. Lessons such as these, the good clergyman, my father (as I called him) taught me, instructing me always to do good and lead a life free from sin, not from fear of damnation or hell, but because goodness is _growth_, a _good life_ is _happiness_. A flower shut out from the light is _damned_: it cannot _grow_. An _evil life_ here or hereafter is in itself _damnation_; for it is _want of growth_, paralysis or decay of all the nobler faculties. As in my own way, and with such words as I could command, I recounted the manner in which the good clergyman educated me, my mother's face grew sad and tearful. She did not speak for some minutes; her gaze was downcast, and through her long dark eyelashes the tears began to steal. "A dream," she muttered, "only a dream! Did he know mankind and know but a portion of their unfathomable baseness, he would see the impossibility of making them better, would feel the necessity of an actual hell, black as the darkest that a poet ever fancied." As she was thus occupied in her own thoughts, a step--a well-known step--resounded on the garden-walk, and the good clergyman advanced from the wicket-gate to the porch. Even now I see that pale face, with the white hair and large clear eyes! He advanced and took my mother cordially by the hand, and was much affected when he heard of my father's death. My mother thanked him warmly for the care which he had taken of her child.