I have been terrifying Dolby out of his wits, by setting in for a paroxysm of sneezing, and it would be madness in me, with such a cold, and on such a night, and with to-morrow’s reading before me, to go out.  I need not add that I shall be heartily glad to see you if you have time.  Many thanks for the Life and Letters of Wilder Dwight.  I shall “save up” that book, to read on the passage home.  After turning over the leaves, I have shut it up and put it away; for I am a great reader at sea, and wish to reserve the interest that I find awaiting me in the personal following of the sad war.  Good God, when one stands among the hearths that war has broken, what an awful consideration it is that such a tremendous evil must be sometimes!

    Ever affectionately yours,

    CHARLES DICKENS.

* * * * *

I will dispose here of the question often asked me by correspondents, and lately renewed in many epistles, "Was Charles Dickens a believer in our Saviour’s life and teachings?" Persons addressing to me such inquiries must be profoundly ignorant of the works of the great author, whom they endeavor by implication to place among the “Unbelievers.”  If anywhere, out of the Bible, God’s goodness and mercy are solemnly commended to the world’s attention, it is in the pages of Dickens.  I had supposed that these written words of his, which have been so extensively copied both in Europe and America, from his last will and testament, dated the 12th of May, 1869, would forever remain an emphatic testimony to his Christian faith:—­

    “I commit my soul to the mercy of God, through our Lord and Saviour
    Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide
    themselves by the teachings of the New Testament.”

I wish it were in my power to bring to the knowledge of all who doubt the Christian character of Charles Dickens certain other memorable words of his, written years ago, with reference to Christmas.  They are not as familiar as many beautiful things from the same pen on the same subject, for the paper which enshrines them has not as yet been collected among his authorized works.  Listen to these loving words in which the Christian writer has embodied the life of his Saviour:—­

“Hark! the Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep!  What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas tree?  Known before all others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed.  An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking