Do we ever think, when we walk those busy, bustling streets, all alive
with Christmas shoppers, and mingle with the rushing tides that throng
and jostle through the stores, that unseen spirits may be hastening to
and fro along those same ways bearing Christ's Christmas gifts to men--
gifts whose value no earthly gold or gems can represent?

Yet, on this morning of the day before Christmas, were these Shining
Ones, moving to and fro with the crowd, whose faces were loving and
serene as the invisible stars, whose robes took no defilement from the
spatter and the rush of earth, whose coming and going was still as the
falling snow-flakes. They entered houses without ringing door-bells, they
passed through apartments without opening doors, and everywhere they were
bearing Christ's Christmas presents, and silently offering them to
whoever would open their souls to receive. Like themselves, their gifts
were invisible--incapable of weight and measurement in gross earthly
scales. To mourners they carried joy; to weary and perplexed hearts,
peace; to souls stifling in luxury and self-indulgence they carried that
noble discontent that rises to aspiration for higher things. Sometimes
they took away an earthly treasure to make room for a heavenly one. They
took health, but left resignation and cheerful faith. They took the babe
from the dear cradle, but left in its place a heart full of pity for the
suffering on earth and a fellowship with the blessed in heaven. Let us
follow their footsteps awhile.



SCENE I.


A young girl's boudoir in one of our American palaces of luxury, built