After a time, when the baby had grown larger, Mary took him back to Nazareth, and there he lived and grew up.

And he grew to be such a sweet, wise, loving boy, such a tender, helpful man, and he said so many good and beautiful things, that every one loved him who knew him.  Many of the things he said are in the Bible, you know, and a great many beautiful stories of the things he used to do while he was on earth.

He loved little children like you very much, and often used to take them up in his arms and talk to them.

And this is the reason we love Christmas Day so much, and try to make everybody happy when it comes around each year.  This is the reason:  because Christ, who was born on Christmas Day, has helped us all to be good so many, many times, and because he was the best Christmas present the great world ever had!

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY.

“The story brings forward other people, other relations, other times and places, other and even quite different forms; notwithstanding this fact, the auditor seeks his image there.”—­Froebel,

Nearly three hundred years ago, a great many of the people in England were very unhappy because their king would not let them pray to God as they liked.  The king said they must use the same prayers that he did; and if they would not do this, they were often thrown into prison, or perhaps driven away from home.

“Let us go away from this country,” said the unhappy Englishmen to each other; and so they left their homes, and went far off to a country called Holland.  It was about this time that they began to call themselves “Pilgrims.”  Pilgrims, you know, are people who are always traveling to find something they love, or to find a land where they can be happier; and these English men and women were journeying, they said, “from place to place, toward heaven, their dearest country.”

In Holland, the Pilgrims were quiet and happy for a while, but they were very poor; and when the children began to grow up, they were not like English children, but talked Dutch, like the little ones of Holland, and some grew naughty and did not want to go to church any more.

“This will never do,” said the Pilgrim fathers and mothers; so after much talking and thinking and writing they made up their minds to come here to America.  They hired two vessels, called the Mayflower and the Speedwell, to take them across the sea; but the Speedwell was not a strong ship, and the captain had to take her home again before she had gone very far.

The Mayflower went back, too.  Part of the Speedwell’s passengers were given to her, and then she started alone across the great ocean.

There were one hundred people on board,—­mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and little children.  They were very crowded; it was cold and uncomfortable; the sea was rough, and pitched the Mayflower about, and they were two months sailing over the water.