to precisely that.  To which it may be answered, in the first place, that we have good authority for saying that even babes and sucklings know something; and, in the second, that, if there is a mote or so to be removed from our premises, the courts and councils of the last few years have found beams enough in some other quarters to build a church that would hold all the good people in Boston and have sticks enough left to make a bonfire for all the heretics.

As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of which we were talking the other day, I will give you a specimen of one way of managing it, if you like.  I don’t believe it will hurt you or anybody.  Besides, I had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant images and gentle words than with sharp sayings, which will only afford a text, if anybody repeats them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, Shimei, and Rab-sha-keh.

[I must leave such gentry, if any of them show themselves, in the hands of my clerical friends, many of whom are ready to stand up for the rights of the laity,—­and to those blessed souls, the good women, to whom this version of the story of a mother’s hidden hopes and tender anxieties is dedicated by their peaceful and loving servant.]

A MOTHER’S SECRET.

     How sweet the sacred legend—­if unblamed
  In my slight verse such holy things are named—­
  Of Mary’s secret hours of hidden joy,
  Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy!
  Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong
  Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song!

     The choral host had closed the angel’s strain
  Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem’s plain;
  And now the shepherds, hastening on their way,
  Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. 
  They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o’er,—­
  They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor
  Where Moab’s daughter, homeless and forlorn,
  Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn;
  And some remembered how the holy scribe,
  Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe,
  Traced the warm blood of Jesse’s royal son
  To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. 
  So fared they on to seek the promised sign
  That marked the anointed heir of David’s line.

     At last, by forms of earthly semblance led,
  They found the crowded inn, the oxen’s shed. 
  No pomp was there, no glory shone around
  On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground;
  One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed,—­
  In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid!

     The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale
  Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale;
  Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed;
  Told how the shining multitude proclaimed,
  “Joy, joy to earth!  Behold the hallowed morn! 
  In David’s city Christ the Lord is born! 
  ‘Glory to God!’ let angels shout on high,—­
  ‘Good-will to men!’ the listening Earth reply!”