Mary's face shone with a wonderful, new light, and her eyes were full of love and tenderness as she looked at the little baby in her arms.

He was a real baby, -a weak, helpless, little boy-baby. He slept, and cried, and opened and shut his big, beautiful eyes at the light, and waved his tiny little fat hands just as all babies do.

And yet he was a wonderful Child. So wonderful, that, from far and near, people, when they heard of Him, came to Bethlehem to see Him.

Among the many, were wise men from the far Eastern lands, who studied the stars.

They came to Bethlehem, guided there by a wonderful, bright star which stopped at last over the place "where the young Child was.”

They fell down before the beautiful young mother and her Babe and worshiped, and gave to the little Child rare gifts of gold and rich perfumes and spices brought from their far-off homes.

And so, the Christ-Child was born in Bethlehem long, long ago. And because of that divine birth, and because of that little Child who grew day by day and became strong, and because of His wonderful

life which made the whole world better and purer, the bells of Christmas ring to-day, and we sing our Christmas songs and give our Christmas gifts!

-Alice E. Allen.

O little town of Bethlehem!

How still we see thee lie,

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by;

Yet, in thy dark street shineth

The everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee to-night.

For Christ is born of Mary,

And gathered all above,

While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars together

Proclaim the holy birth,

And praises sing to God the King,

And peace to men on earth!

-Phillips Brooks.

A DOG OF FLANDERS.*

PART I.

Nello and Petrasche were friends, in a friendship closer than brotherhood. Nello was a little boy of Ardenne; Petrasche was a big Flemish dog. They were of the same age in years, yet one was still young, and the other was already old.

They had dwelt together almost all their days; both were orphaned and poor, and owed their lives to the same hand. It had been the beginning of the tie between them, their first bond of sympathy; and it had strengthened day by day, and had grown with their growth, until they loved each other very greatly.

Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little village-a Flemish village near Antwerp, set amidst flat pasture and corn-lands, with long lines of poplars and alders bending in the breeze, on the edge of the great canal which ran through it.

It had about a score of houses, with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and roofs rose-red, or black and white, and walls whitewashed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the centre of the village * See preface.

stood a windmill, placed on a little moss-grown slope it was a landmark to all the level country round.

Here, almost from their birth upward, Nello and Petrasche had dwelt together in the little hut on the edge of the village, with the cathedral spire of Antwerp rising in the north-east, beyond the great, green plain of grass and corn that stretched away from them like a tideless, changeless sea.

It was the hut of a very old man, of a very poor man old Jehan Daas, who in his time had been a soldier, and who had brought from his service nothing except a wound, which had made him a cripple.

When old Jehan Daas had reached his full eighty years, his daughter died, and left him as a legacy her two-year-old son. The old man could ill support himself; but he took up the burden, and it soon became welcome and precious to him. Little Nello throve with him, and the old man and the little child lived in the poor hut contentedly.

The old man was very gentle and good to the boy, and the boy was a beautiful, innocent, truthful,