A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
For my 30,000 Sea Island Friends.
A Loving Greeting and Merry Christmas.—Clara Barton.
Lo! The Christmas morn is breaking,
Bring the angels bright array,
For the Christian world is waking,
And the Lord is born to-day.
Shout then, brothers; shout and pray,
For the blessed Lord is born to-day.
No more tears and pain and sorrow,
Hark! I hear the angels say
Blessed be the bright to-morrow,
For the Lord is born to-day.
Shout then, sisters; shout and pray,
For the blessed Lord is born to-day.
Forget your night of sad disaster,
Cast your burdens all away,
Wait the coming of the Master,
For the Lord is born to-day.
Shout then, children; shout and pray,
For the blessed Lord is born to-day.
In the sunlight, soft and golden,
Round the babe the angels play;
List, their notes so grand and olden,
Lo! The Lord is born to-day.
Shout, all people; shout and pray.
For the blessed Lord is born to-day.
CLOTHING DEPARTMENT—Continued.
As the work dropped from the weary hand of Mrs. Gardner, another, stronger, more fresh and new in the work, took it up. Mrs. Harriette L. Reed, of Boston, who, while never permanently with us, seldom allows a field to escape her. We regard it as a loss to any field where her genial presence, clear perception and sound judgment take no part. Mrs. Reed, like our beloved and brilliant countrywoman, Mrs. Logan, went to the civil war of 1861, a bride. Her gallant young husband, Captain J. Sewall Reed, took the first detachment of volunteer cavalry from California, known as the “California One Hundred.” He fell in an ambuscade, in the Army of the Potomac, 1864. His brave young wife was always with him at the front, and received his dead body when brought in. Thus early bereft, she took up the march of life alone, and faithfully and tirelessly has she made it, with a cheering word and an outstretched hand to every weary comrade in the tedious march of more than three decades, and still she serves, and still they call her blessed.
Her graceful report, which has lain in my portfolio since 1893, now comes to light with its waiting companions: