death."

Adela was hiding her face now.

"So, my friends, let us be children this Christmas. Of course, when I
say to anyone, 'You must be like a child,' I mean a good child. A
naughty child is not a child as long as his naughtiness lasts. He is
not what God meant when He said, 'I will make a child.' Think of the
best child you know--the one who has filled you with most
admiration. It is his child-likeness that has so delighted you. It is
because he is so true to the child-nature that you admire him. Jesus
is like that child. You must be like that child. But you cannot help
knowing some faults in him--some things that are like ill-grown men
and women. Jesus is not like him, there. Think of the best child you
can imagine; nay, think of a better than you can imagine--of the one
that God thinks of when he invents a child in the depth of his
fatherhood: such child-like men and women must you one day become; and
what day better to begin, than this blessed Christmas Morn? Let such a
child be born in your hearts this day. Take the child Jesus to your
bosoms, into your very souls, and let him grow there till he is one
with your every thought, and purpose, and hope. As a good child born
in a family will make the family good; so Jesus, born into the world,
will make the world good at last. And this perfect child, born in your
hearts, will make your hearts good; and that is God's best gift to
you.

"Then be happy this Christmas Day; for to you a child is born.
Childless women, this infant is yours--wives or maidens. Fathers and
mothers, he is your first-born, and he will save his brethren. Eat and
drink, and be merry and kind, for the love of God is the source of all