Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hooked chariot stood
Unstain’d with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;
And kings sate still with awfull eye,
As if they sure knew their sovran Lord was by.
—Milton.
A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! So the phrase goes and many a time has it just been uttered, who knows whether with meaning or unmeaning lips? Christmas, part and parcel of America’s glorious inheritance from Old England, is the sovereign festival in the South. The North may keep its gaudy Fourth of July, the birth of a nation; but, as for us, we will observe the day commemorating the birth of the King of the Universe, a day hoary with centuries of associations.