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"Children love me so, that sometimes I half fancy · it's a silly fancy, William- they have some way I don't know of, of feeling for my little child and me, and understanding why their love is precious to me. If I have been quiet since, I have been more happy, William, in a hundred ways; not least happy, dear, in this, that even when my little child was born and dead but a few days, and I was weak and sorrowful, and could not help grieving a little, the thought arose, that, if I tried to lead a good life, I should meet in heaven a bright creature who would call me mother.'

"Redlaw fell upon his knees with a loud cry.

"O Thou,' he said, 'who, through the teaching of pure love, hast graciously restored me to the memory which was the memory of Christ upon the cross, and of all the good who perished in his cause, receive my thanks, and bless her!"

"Then he folded her to his heart; and Milly, sobbing more than ever, cried, as she laughed, ' He is come back to himself! He likes me very much indeed too! Oh, dear, dear, dear me, here's another!'

“Then the student entered, leading by the hand a lovely girl, who was afraid to come. And Redlaw, so changed towards him, seeing in him and in his youthful choice the softened shadow of that chastening passage in his own life, to which, as to a shady tree, the dove so long imprisoned in his solitary ark might fly for rest and company, fell upon his neck, entreating them to be his children.

"Then, as Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us, not less than our own experiences for all good, he laid his hand upon the boy, and silently calling Him to witness who laid his hand on children in old time, rebuking, in the majesty of his prophetic knowledge, those who kept them from him, vowed to protect him, teach him, and reclaim him."

No wonder, that, after reading these sweet Christmascarols, the Rev. Mr. Murray thus apostrophized the departed author, and that tens of thousands echo his words:

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"Nevermore will the bells ring at Christmas Eve but that to me a note of sadness will mingle with their chimes: for he who taught the world the lesson of the festival; who, using it as a text, preached as no pulpit ever preached, a sermon of charity and love; the hand that touched the bells of England, and made the whole world melodious with Christian chimes, is cold and motionless forever. Farewell, gentle spirit! thou wast not perfect until now. Thou didst have thy passions, and thy share of human errors; but death has freed thee. Thou art no longer trammelled. Thou art delivered out of bondage; and thy freed spirit walks in glory. Though dead, thou speakest. Thy voice is

universal in its reach. The ages will be thy audience. Thy memory will be as a growing wreath above thy grave: it will take root in the soil that covers thee, and with the years renew its blossoms and its leaves perennially."

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"The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea."- Ps. xciii. 4.

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HEN Mr. Dickens returned to London from Italy, he tried the experiment of publishing a daily newspaper. He gathered about him a brilliant staff of writers,

of whom he was the chief, and issued on Jan. 21, 1846, the first number of "The Daily News," a paper liberal in its politics, and of high literary character. In this paper he published a column a day of his sketches from Italy. But this new speculation did not prove a success, and soon passed into the hands of another. The vocation of Mr. Dickens was that of a novelist; and the drudgery of a daily editor's life was not so pleasant or so profitable for him. The chief editor of "The Daily News" could not find time or

strength for new novels, and therefore it was well for the world of readers when the novel-writer returned to the vocation for which he was specially fitted; and during the years 1847 and 1848 appeared "Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son." This interesting novel was written during a sojourn in Switzerland and France; and the closing paragraph of its preface is a confidential reminiscence which is now tenderly cherished.

"I began this book," Mr. Dickens says, after an observation upon the character of Mr. Dombey, "by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it for some months in France. The association between the writing and the place of writing is so strong in my mind, that at this day, although I know every chair in the little midshipman's house, and could swear to every pew in the church in which Florence was married, or to every young gentleman's bedstead in Dr. Blimber's establishment, I yet confusedly imagine Capt. Cuttle as secluding himself from Mrs. Mac Stinger among the mountains of Switzerland. Similarly, when I am reminded by any chance of what it was that the waves were always saying, I wander in my fancy for a whole winter night about the streets of Paris, -as I really did, with a heavy heart, on the night when my little friend and I parted forever.'

Mr. Perkins, in his biography of Mr. Dickens, thus

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