When all the lights are out, and the embers are dying down on the hearth, when silence reigns about this land of love, and the peace is profound, I shall go in at the gates of the Garden of Sleep, and I shall kneel down on a grave, that is my dearest possession, and I shall kiss the marble cross above it, and pray that the parting may not be eternal, and that we may meet again to part no more for ever!
And then, perhaps, before the prayer is ended, and another day is born, the Christmas joy bells will answer one another across the frosty hills, and love and charity will be in all the air, and the words will come home to me, which will be the text of my Christmas sermon:—
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.”
A Lonely Clergyman.
THE END.
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.