genius for religion. All the Christians think he was full of all manner
of loving kindness and tender mercy. So all over the world to-day,
among the two hundred and sixty millions of Christians, there is great
rejoicing on account of his birth, which it is erroneously supposed took
place on the 25th of December, in the year ONE. They sing psalms, and
preach sermons, and offer prayers, and make a famous holiday. But the
greater part of the people think only of the festival, and very little
of the noble boy who was born so long ago in a tavern-barn in Judea. And
of all the ministers who talk so much about the old Christ, there are
not many who would welcome a new man who should come and do for this
age the great service which Jesus did for his own time. But, as on the
Fourth of July, slaveholders, and border ruffians, and kidnappers, and
men who believe there is no higher law, ring their bells, and fire their
cannons, and let off their rockets, making more noise than all those
who honor and defend the great Principles of Humanity which make
Independence Day famous,--so on Christmas, not only religious people,
but Scribes, and Pharisees, and Hypocrites make a great talk about
"Christ and him crucified;" when, if a man of genius for religion were
now to appear, they would be the first to call out "Infidel!" "Infidel!"
and would kill him if it were possible or safe.



Well, one rainy Sunday evening, in 1855, just twelve days before
Christmas, in the little town of Soitgoes, in Worcester County, Mass.,
Aunt Kindly and Uncle Nathan were sitting in their comfortable parlor
before a bright wood-fire. It was about eight o'clock, a stormy night;
now it snowed a little, then it rained, then snowed again, seeming as if
the weather was determined on some kind of storm, but had not yet made
up its mind for snow, rain, or hail. Now the wind roared in the chimney,