of "The Waits," and see people streaming into the churches, where the pulpits are decorated with ivy and red berries, and the walls of the chancel, above the tables of the Commandments, are pricked out in evergreens with the triumphant message, "Peace on earth, good will to men." In the Catholic churches we see the little Nativities which have been set up in the side chapels, with their tiny pasteboard figures of the Mother and Child, Joseph and his ass and the Wise Men of the East, for Christmas makes us all children. And because Christmas comes at a time of the year when want is keenly felt, we see good women, to whom God has given no children of their own, perhaps, going out into the fog and darkness of the streets to look for the homeless and hungry among the children of other people.
Such in very simple sooth, although it seems so hard to believe it, was the Christmas of only three years ago—a few short hours snatched as by the angel of healing out of the immense sorrow of existence,
