to have been brought nearer to the invisible mystery, and a solemn peace
of happy insight seems for a little while at least to possess our souls.
Our white walk in the snow-bright air has in some way quickened the
half-torpid immortal within us, revived awhile our sluggish sense of our
spiritual significance and destiny, made us once more, if only for a
little, attractively mysterious to ourselves. Yes! there is what one
might call a certain monastic discipline about winter which impels the
least spiritual minded to meditation on his mortal lot and its immortal
meanings; and thus, as I said, the Church has done wisely to choose
winter for its most Christian festival. The heart of man, thus prepared
by the very elements, is the more open to the message of the miraculous
love, and the more ready to translate it into terms of human goodness.
And thus, I hope, the ghostly significance of mince-pie is made clear.

But enough of ghostly, grown-up thoughts. Let us end with a song for
the children:

O the big red sun,
And the wide white world,
And the nursery window
Mother-of-pearled;

And the houses all
In hoods of snow,
And the mince-pies,
And the mistletoe;

And Christmas pudding,
And berries red,
And stockings hung