HRISTMAS-TIDE is here again! We can but "repeat ourselves" in wishing our readers

"A Holy and a Happy Christmas." May Bethlehem light shine on every Home, and Bethlehem love gain an entrance to every Heart!

The New Year too is at hand! May it bring new blessings to us all from the Author and Giver of all good gifts; blessings to enjoy, blessings to stimulate, and blessings to impart. May all receivers be givers; and all givers of time and money, of influence and love, be able to testify, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Our arrangements for the New Year are almost completed, and our three magazines will, we hope, possess increased attractiveness and interest. Satisfied and thankful for the past, we are looking for, and with God's blessing will aim at, greater things in the future. We are glad also to be able to report the continued appreciation of our efforts to supply in Hand and Heart, the Church Herald and Review, a cheap illustrated journal of the highest class for Christian home reading.

Regarding our readers (as we have always done) as our fellow helpers, we are sure we may rely on their doing their part during the present month-the most important publishing month in the year-to make our work still more widely known. As we said in one of the first numbers of Hand and Heart, whatever circulation we attain, we shall always aim to double it.

Nor are we at all doubtful of progress. The excessive cheapness of our publications (which their present immense circulation alone renders possible) assures us that if we make them more extensively known we may

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add indefinitely to our constituency. We are by no means disposed to "rest on our oars because we have made such good progress. We feel that we have our voyage still before us. We want our readers to increase rather than lessen their aid.

A penny invested by every reader in an extra copy of The Day of Days, Home Words, or Hand and Heart, to introduce them to other homes, would double our January circulation, and we believe go far to double the circulation of every succeeding month. A copy placed on a bookseller's counter, or a show-bill exhibited in the window, a word in correspondence, a Christmas gift to a few of our neighbours,-in these and many other ways, most important aid may be given to further our efforts to reach the "Hearts" and the "Homes" of the people.

We cannot omit a passing reference to the generous liberality of our readers in contributing to the Havergal Church Missionary Memorial Fund, and the "Robin Dinner Fund." The interest awakened in the former has resulted in subscriptions from fully twelve thousand contributors, amounting to upwards of £2,300. "Robin's" work last Christmas was more prosperous than ever, More than ten thousand London "Robins" were made happy for one evening; and the wide circulation of "Robin's Carol, and What Came of It," in the provinces, has, we find, already done much towards making these "Bird Dinners" what the Sheffield Post anticipated they would become, "a national institution." We are again preparing for the "Robin Dinners," and we are quite sure "Robin" will not plead in vain.t

We will only add, "May the good Hand of our God" be upon us in this and every other work; and give us, and our readers too, for the New Year

"A Hand to labour, and a Heart to love.""

CHAPTER III.

THE UNINVITED GUESTS.

HE children had entered the large door. They mounted the wide stone staircase, holding the iron handrail that ran along by the wall; for the wooden soles of their shoes were laden with snow and ice, and became slippery as they tried to ascend the steps. Servants and messengers had been passing to and fro, so that the door of the house which led into the corridor stood open. This corridor is a sort of small hall, which is used for taking off boots, goloshes, and cloaks. Just before its door was also the door of the larger saloon we have described, which likewise lay open. Every one happened to be busy, or certainly these doors would have been carefully shut. The wood had now been kindled in the stove, and the blazing logs cast a cheerful dancing light over the beautiful room and all its gay decorations.

The children stood hand in hand in the corridor, and attempted to sing their Yule song. But their hearts were heavy; they had eaten little, and walked much; so that when they tried to sing, the notes would not come from their pale lips. Poor children! it was hard to make melody in their heaviness: they had sung the songs of Zion in their little wooden hut by the forest side, but now it was to them as if they were ordered to sing the Lord's song in a strange land.

"Here," said Carl to his sister, "there must certainly dwell a very rich and noble lord."

"Surely," she whispered, "he will not deny us some Christmas gift; perhaps some grött, or a penny even, to buy a Yule light." But looking on into the grand saloon, a gleam of delight shone over her little face :

:

"O Carl! Carl!" she cried, "what a grand and beautiful room is there! what a wonderfully large Yule table is set out! what a finedressed Yule tree! Father and mother used to give us three or four very little bits of lights; but see, what a great number of lights shine out there! Look, brother, only look!"

So saying, she drew the boy nearer to the open door. Carl drew off his cap, and holding it in one hand, clasped his sister's in the other. Thus did they both timidly, yet curiously, advance even over the threshold of the handsome and tempting room. Certainly these poor children were quite ignorant of the grand world, or they would never have thought of thus entering the dwellings of the rich as they were accustomed to enter the houses of the more lowly.

"Carl," said Lilia, in a voice of almost awe, "I truly believe that the blessed Child Jesus must love much the children who dwell in this fine house, since He gives them all these grand things."

"The blessed Child Jesus had none of these grand things when He Himself was born in Bethlehem," said Carl, in a louder and more decided tone; "He may truly love us too, although He gives us none of them. Do you not recollect, little sister, how father and mother used to teach us that word of God which says, 'I love them that love Me '? Therefore, if we love Jesus, we must only want to have what Jesus Himself had when He came down to us."

Just at this moment a door opened at the opposite side of the saloon, and a loud voice called out, "Stop the young thieves!" The children uttered a cry of terror, and would have fled; but a servant coming from the door behind them, held them fast.

"What have you been doing here? Have you stolen something from this room ?" cried several voices.

Lilia began to cry; but Carl tremblingly

answered, "Pardon, dear sir, we came here because we were hungry, and hoped to get some little Christmas gift."

"Or even a penny to buy a Yule light," sobbed little Lilia, "for we always had one on Yule Eve."

"The door here stood open," Carl resumed, "and tempted me to look in at the fine things, but not to take any of them. No, worthy sir, we must not so ill repay the blessed Child Jesus who gave us so much gladness in former years, while our parents still lived."

"Ah! you are a young läsare, are you? ”* said one of the men, tauntingly. "Come, get you out; you are not ashamed to preach any more than to beg."

The children were too eager to obey the command to attend to the taunt. They fled through the doors they had hopefully entered. Just as they ran out, two other children ran into the grand room they had escaped from. They saw the little wanderers, and asked who they were. "Young beggars," was the answer, "who had been looking for some Yule gifts."

For a moment the rich children thought it a pity these poor ones should have got nothing; but they began to look at the beauti ful objects around them, and speedily ceased to think of the houseless, hungry wanderers.

Their uncle came in; and as he wanted to slip some nice presents on their table, he told them to run away out of the room, for no one was permitted to enter it until the whole company were assembling.

“Oh!” cried the children, "others have come in here as well as we; two little beggars were here when we came in."

"That is not right," said the uncle," they might have been tempted to take something."

The servant, to whom he looked in speaking, said the children had taken nothing, and repeated, laughing, what the boy had said about not so ill repaying the blessed Jesus, who had given them so much happiness in former years.

"Poor boy!" said the gentleman, when he heard this; "that was a good sentiment;

it is not well to call every one läsare who thinks of the Saviour, and thanks God for His great love; it looks as if we did not read the Holy Word ourselves, when we call those who do read it by any particular name." Then, turning to the children, he said, "Augusta, did you and Olaf let these poor creatures go away without getting even a bit to cat ?"

"I am sorry I did not ask for something for them," the girl replied; "but I wanted to see all the beautiful things, and I could not go away to ask mamma."

"And I did not think about them," cried her brother; one has so many other things to think of on Yule Eve."

The uncle shook his head disapprovingly, and went out and looked down the stone steps, but the children were not to be seen.

CHAPTER IV.

YULE EVE IN THE FOREST.

POOR things! he did not think how hard they were running,-what terror filled their hearts and winged their feet! They did not speak till they got far out of the town,-the beautiful town they had so wished to see, and were now so glad to escape from. Lilia was the first to speak, and to slacken her pace as she spoke.

Stockholm is not like mighty London; one is very soon beyond its streets, and then forests and water are all around. So when they were clearly out of the town, the children stopped running, and Lilia said, “Little† brother, let us not go again into the great towns, nor enter the fine rooms; no, nor think about the beautiful Yule gifts, or the Yule supper.

Ah! is it not true that the dear Child Jesus cannot love people whose hearts are hard?"

"These people did not know us, little sister," said Carl, in a voice which yet faltered with emotion. "No; if they had known us, they would never have called us thieves. Perhaps their hearts are not at all hard; God knows that; but surely we will not go

↑ "Little," in Swedish, is a term of endearment.

again into the great towns, where, doubtless, many bad people live who make the hearts of the rich to be hard against the honest poor. I see now that poor people ought not to leave their own parish where they are known."

"Let us go back there, brother. Farmer Bonder will surely give us a little supper; ah! I should be glad of that!"

"You are hungry, little Lilia," said the boy; "look here," and he drew to the edge of his pocket a handful of bits of broken food. 66 See, now, we shall make a good feast when we get once more into our own forest."

The hope of food and rest stimulated again the hungry and tired child. Putting forth all her little remaining strength, she bravely toiled on beside her brother, until they entered the deep fir forest.

And glorious there was the scene! The moon and the stars had come forth, and exceedingly beautiful were they! The winter sky of Sweden, in clear weather, is truly magnificent; and more so when the snow is frozen on the ground. The moonlight is a pure, clear white; it does not cast the golden radiancy which it sheds upon us in England. The moon itself looks so much larger than our moon, we scarcely believe it is the same; the large, pure orb seems to hang in ether, detached, still, and grand, with the sky high above it, and the white glittering earth so wide spread out beneath it. The heavens themselves, with all their brilliantlysparkling bodies, have a gigantic aspect. All looks so vast, so distinct, and, to an eye accustomed to the scenery of our milder isle, so strange, so Scandinavian-like, that the mind naturally returns to old, long-preconceived ideas of the wild and terrible north which now exist in legion only.

"See now," said Carl to his little sister, as one and another of those large, bright stars came glittering out,-" see now, my little Lilia, there are our Yule lights sparkling up; the lights which Jesus gives us from Himself."

Beautiful was it now in the silent wood. The earth was covered deep with hard-frozen snow which shone like crystal 'under those heavenly lights; the trees were clad in a

rime-frost dress; the bare branches of the mighty oaks were spangled with icicles; and the green twigs of the lofty pines were fringed with silver edging. From each dark leaflet, from each brown naked bough, hung ice ornaments which sparkled and shone like costly diamonds in the clear moonbeams. The scene was one of unspeakable splendour, of solemn, solitary grandeur.

Lilia sighed, and pressed her brother's hand: "I wish we wero at home!" she whispered. "Ah! I forgot, we have no home now! Yes; just now, if we had our home, we should be lighting up our Yule tree: dear mother would certainly do that."

"Mother is happy now with the blessed Jesus; and Jesus may soon take us too, my little sister," answered Carl.

"That may well be," said Lilia, heavily. "Look up, Lilia, look up," he cried, trying to cheer her, "and tell me where could you see such Yule trees as these we have here? How large and grandly dressed they are!" He spoke to cheer her, poor boy.

They reached, as he spoke, the foot of a low hill, which rose in the forest. It was just there that the ice-pearls hung most beautifully from the trees,-more beautiful were they than the jewels that deck the crowns of kings; and over them gleamed the million stars which lighted up the heavens with the most wonderful of all Christmas lights; the same stars, shining over the forest of Sweden now, as they shone over the plain of Bethlehem once, when shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night, and angels sang glory to God in the highest, because to man was born a Saviour, who was Christ the Lord.

The weary little wanderera sat down there on a felled tree; the boy drew out the contents of his pocket, and said, "Eat, little sister: see, here is your Yule table, here is your Yule supper, and up there are your Yule candles."

Lilia ate; and, as the child revived with the food, she said, "I think, little brother, that the blessed Child Jesus must love us still; for does He not give us now a good Yule Eve here in the forest? And I think He may take us soon to be with father and mother again, and then we shall never want