"Very well. I'll be with you next Wednesday."
We then shook hands and parted, and I hastened to rejoin my friends, who I found, in the interval, had met with the Roscoes, including Miss Roscoe, who had now happily completely recovered from her cold, and consented, evidently to the satisfaction of Mr. Llewellin, to accompany her parents in the evening to Fairmount. I informed them of my conversation with Farmer Pickford, and how I had arranged to conduct a prayer meeting at his house on the ensuing Wednesday. We then proceeded homeward, discussing the topics of the sermon we had just heard, with, I trust, much mutual profit. Early in the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe, and Miss Roscoe, appeared, agreeably to their promise, and we spent a very pleasant Christmas evening together. The tranquil joy visible in the countenances of Mr. Llewellin and Miss Roscoe was especially manifest—our courting days, as Goldsmith remarks, being generally about the happiest in our lives. After tea we had a little sacred music, both Mr. Llewellin and Miss Roscoe being admirable performers on the pianoforte. We then all joined in singing together the Evening Hymn. Thus terminated our Christmas at Fairmount, during which we had all experienced how much better is the employment of the day in the purposes of devotion than in those of conviviality and mirth.
On Christmas Day, when the scattered members of a family are gathered together to enjoy, around the social hearth, the pleasures of social intercourse, those who are the avowed disciples of the Redeemer should be on their guard, lest they conform to the custom of the world, which too often celebrates his birth by indulging in the pleasures of eating and drinking, and thoughtless merriment, rather than by improving conversation and the interchange of devotional sentiments. We are required to set an example; and while I am no advocate for the exclusion of innocent recreations and indulgences from the domestic circle, I must enforce the imperative necessity of a dignified consistency of conduct on the part of those who profess to be wiser in their generation than the men of the world, and who contemplate, with wonder and with gratitude, the scheme of redemption, consummated by the appearance of the Saviour, on which many pour contempt, or look with unmoved indifference. You may have your family parties, and you may invite your friends to partake of your bounty, and you may assume and wear an air of cheerfulness and pleasantry; but no excess of eating, or of drinking, or of levity should be tolerated, as your profession has raised you to the summit of observation, and the irreligious, no less than your fellow-Christians, expect that you will let your moderation appear unto all men. Your children, if they are not decidedly pious, may wish, on this day of festivity, to trespass a little farther on the gravity of your domestic habits than they presume to do on ordinary occasions; and though I would not advise you to transfer the sanctity of the Sabbath to this day, as you have no authority for so doing, yet there is a propriety in observing it with decorum, as commemorating the birth of him who came to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. The slightest reference to the design of his mission will suggest to your mind the importance of celebrating this day in a suitable manner, by offering "thanks unto God for his unspeakable gift," and by giving a practical proof that he came to save his people from their sins.
WINTER SCENES.
The weather had been intensely cold since our arrival at Fairmount, and for two days the snow had descended without intermission; but on the second evening a severe frost set in, and when I stepped out in the morning, I found that the fallen flakes had become so hardened that I could walk on them without leaving the impression of my foot on the surface. I love the country at all seasons, and, though certainly preferring it in the genial seasons of summer and autumn, when the woods are decked in their mantle of green, and the fields brighten in the sunshine with their waving crops of golden grain, I have nevertheless frequently experienced a large amount of pleasure in rambling during winter along the frozen roads and lanes, or contemplating the bleak landscape spreading out before me, with its white carpet of snow.
After walking briskly onward for a little distance, I determined, after some hesitation, to revisit the spot where, on a former occasion,[29] I had sat to feast myself on the enchanting scenery of the country, which was then clothed in its gayest summer dress; but now the scene was completely changed. The skeleton trees extended their leafless branches sprinkled with snow-flakes; many of the evergreens in the shrubbery presented a withered and scorched aspect, from the influence of the frost; while the little birds, who in the summer had delighted us with their music, were now roaming about the country in search of food, and some of them not unfrequently found dead on the roadside from hunger and cold.