When we got back to the Church we found it warm with a blazing fire in the great stove, and bright with a bevy of laughing girls, who emptied our sleigh of its contents almost before we were aware what had happened, and were impatiently demanding more.  Miss Moore had proposed just to trim the pulpit-oh! but she is a shrewd manager-and we had brought evergreens enough to make two or three.  But the plans had grown faster by far than we could work.  One young lady had remarked how beautiful the chandelier would look with an evergreen wreath; a second had pointed out that there ought to be large festoons draping the windows; a third, the soprano, had declared that the choir had as good a right to trimming as the pulpit; a fourth, a graduate of Mount Holyoke, had proposed some mottoes, and had agreed to cut the letters, and Mr. Leacock, the store keeper, had been foraged on for pasteboard, and an extemporized table contrived on which to cut and trim them.  So off we were driven again, with barely time to thaw out our half-frozen toes; and, in short, my half morning’s job lengthened out to a long days hard but joyous work, before the pile of evergreens in the hall was large enough to supply the energies of the Christmas workers.

Of course, we must trim the Sunday school-room as well as the Church, for the children must have their Christmas; and trimmed it was, so luxuriantly that it seemed as though the woods had laid siege to and taken possession of the sanctuary, and that nature was preparing to join on this glad day her voice with that of man in singing praise to Him who brings life to a winter-wrapped earth, and whose fittest symbol, therefore, is the tree whose greenness not even the frosts of the coldest winter have power to diminish.

Of course Christmas itself passed without recognition.  I went, as is my wont, with my wife and my prayer-book, to the Episcopal Church.  Our Christmas waited till Sunday.  A glorious day it was.  The sun never shone more brightly.  The crisp keenness was gone from the air.  The balmy breath of spring was in it.  The Church never was so full before and never has been since.  The story of its decorations had been spread far and wide, and all Wheathedge flocked to see what the Presbyterians would make of Christmas.  The pulpit, the walls, the gallery, the chandelier were festooned with wreaths of living green.  A cross-O tempora!  O mores!-of cedar and immortelles, stood on the communion table.  Over the pulpit were those sublime words of the sublimest of all books, “He shall save His people from their sins.”  Opposite it, emblazoned on the gallery, was heaven and earth’s fitting response to this sublime revelation, “Glory be to God on high.”  Miss Moore was better than her word.  She managed both choir and minister.  Both were in the spirit of the occasion.  The parson never preached a better sermon than his Christmas meditation.  The choir never sung a more joyous song of praise than their Christmas anthem.  And before the influence of that morning’s service I think the last objection to observing Christmas faded out.