“Mightily does it distress me that you do bring your children up in woeful ignorance of the Christmas-tide as we celebrate it in Merry England. ’Tis very dolorous that you should be so blinded as to think the proper observance of that Holy day bewrayeth a Popish tendency. Methinks it be a lack of good red blood that makes you all so sour and mealy-mouthed. Your Governor informs me that on that blessed day, sadly you wend your way to church, with downcast eyes as though you were sinners catched in naughtiness. There is great droning of psalms through your noses, which is in itself a sorry thing, and I doubt not, an unpleasant sound in the Lord’s ear. Whereas, in green old England, the little children carol all day long. But here not even your babes have sugar-plums. My stomach turns against you and your ways. How different is it in my castle across the seas! To the mantel above the blazing yule-log, my sweetest daughter pins her stocking. Outside, the snow snaps with the cold and the frost flowers whiten the window-pane. Then come the village lads and lassies singing, that we may open the window and fling out siller pieces, sometimes a bit of bright gold.
“Lastly, at the chiming of the midnight bells, troop in my servant-men and wenches. One and all we drink the hot-spiced glee-wine my sweet Elizabeth makes in the silver wassail bowl. And to every man and maid I give a piece of gold.
“I do beseech you, good people, to have remembrance after this, that Christmas is children’s day, and that to keep it with sadness and dolour, is an offence unto the Lord Christ, whose birth made that day, and who was said by those versed in wisdom, to have been when a child tender, holy, and gay, as it becometh all children to be. Therefore I would have you bestow these delights upon your children, for they are bowed by responsibilities beyond their years, and joy is checked in them, so that I oft catch myself sighing, for I have great pain not to see all children joyful and full of the vigour of life.
“Thus I would make an example of the little maid whom you have persecuted, that you may deal gently with children, remembering how near you were to shedding her innocent blood. I beseech you, by the grievous sin that you and your learned judges so nearly committed, to be tender with the poor children, knowing they speak the truth, unless you do so fright them that in bewilderment they seek to save themselves by a falsehood and know not into what evil they fall thereby. When you are tempted to severity, inquire well into the merits of the case, lest you do an injustice, keeping in mind the persecution of the little maid who hath saved England.”
Thus Lord Christopher ceased speaking.
In the years to come it was related that his speech was so affecting as to draw tears to the eyes of all, and that many a parent in Salem was known thereafter to refrain from harsh reproof of a child, because of the great physician’s words and the love that all learned to bear him during the weeks his illness forced him to remain in Salem.
Regarding his earnest request that Christmas be observed by them after his irreverend fashion, they did not condemn him for his Popish tendency, but winked at it, as it were, knowing he had other virtues to counterbalance this weakness. Being altogether charmed by him, they earnestly trusted that for his own good he might come round to their way of thinking.
During those few weeks his presence shed the only brightness in the panic-stricken town. While he was powerless to avert the awful condition, there were nevertheless many sad hearts which were made lighter, merely to visit him in his sick-room at the tavern. And the goodwives, finding their dainties did not please him as much as the sight of their little children, ceased not to send the former, but instead sent both.
When at last he was able to leave his room, Lord Christopher went one afternoon to Deliverance’s home.