"And they who do their souls no wrong,
But keep, at eve, the faith of morn.
Shall daily hear the angel-song,
'To-day the Prince of Peace is born.'"

--_James Russell Lowell._


To people who go into a new country to live, Christmas, which is so
generally a family day, must of necessity be a lonely, homesick one.
They carry with them the memory of happy customs, of loved ones far
away, and of observances which can never be held again. So many of the
earliest Christmasses in America were peculiarly sad ones to the
various groups of settlers; most especially was this the case with the
first Christmas ever spent by Europeans in the New World.

The intrepid mariner, Christopher Columbus, entered the port of Bohio,
in the Island of Hayti, on St. Nicholas Day, December 6, 1492, and in
honor of the day named that port Saint Nicholas. The _Pinta_ with her
crew had parted from the others and gone her own way, so the _Santa
Maria_ and the _Niña_ sailed on together, occasionally stopping where
the port seemed inviting. While in one of these, Columbus heard of
rich mines not far distant and started for them. The Admiral and his
men were tired from continued watching, and as the sea was smooth and
the wind favorable, they went to sleep leaving the ship in care of a
boy. Who he was no one knows, but he was evidently the first Christian
boy to pass a Christmas Eve on this continent,--and a sad one it was
for him. The ship struck a sand-bank and settled, a complete wreck, in
the waters of the New World. Fortunately no lives were lost, and the
wreckage furnished material for the building of a fortress which