"Come down, Hermas, you sluggard! Come down! It is Christmas morn.
Awake and be glad with us!"

"I am coming," he answered listlessly; "only have patience a moment.
I have been awake since midnight, and waiting for the day."

"You hear him!" said his friends one to another. "How he puts us all
to shame! He is more watchful, more eager, than any of us. Our
master, John the Presbyter, does well to be proud of him. He is the
best man in our class. When he is baptized the church will get a
strong member."

While they were talking the door opened and Hermas stepped out. He
was a figure to be remarked in any company--tall,
broad-shouldered, straight-hipped, with a head proudly poised on the
firm column of the neck, and short brown curls clustering over the
square forehead. It was the perpetual type of vigourous and
intelligent young manhood, such as may be found in every century
among the throngs of ordinary men, as if to show what the flower of
the race should be. But the light in his dark blue eyes was clouded
and uncertain; his smooth cheeks were leaner than they should have
been at twenty; and there were downward lines about his mouth which
spoke of desires unsatisfied and ambitions repressed. He joined his
companions with brief greetings,--a nod to one, a word to another,--
and they passed together down the steep street.

Overhead the mystery of daybreak was silently transfiguring the sky.
The curtain of darkness had lifted softly upward along the edge of
the horizon. The ragged crests of Mount Silpius were outlined with
pale rosy light. In the central vault of heaven a few large stars