BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
Here's Christmas at the door again!
There's never a day so dear,
Nor one we are half so glad to see,
In the course of the whole round year.
It isn't that Santa Claus comes back,
And his hands with gifts are full;
It isn't that we have holidays,
When we need not go to school.
But the air is thrilled with happiness,
The crowds go up and down,
And people laugh and shout for joy
When Christmas comes to town.
There's nobody left to stand outside,
The world is bright with cheer,
For Christmas-time is the merriest time
In the whole of the big round year.
We try to love our enemies now,
And our friends we love the more,
That strife and anger fade away
When Christmas taps at the door.
["THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS."]
CLEMENT C. MOORE.
The author of the famous poem that recounts in such graphic language "The Visit of St. Nicholas" was born in the city of New York, July 15, 1779. His boyhood was passed at the country-seat of his father, called Chelsea, then far remote from the city, but now a very thickly settled portion of it, and embracing a large tract in the vicinity of Ninth Avenue and Twenty-third Street.
Dr. Moore received his early education in Latin and Greek from his father, the venerable Bishop of New York, and in 1798 he graduated from Columbia College. He devoted himself to the study of the Hebrew language, and the result of his labors appeared in the form of a Hebrew and English Lexicon, which was published in 1809, and he was thus the pioneer in the work of Hebrew lexicography. In 1821 Dr. Moore was made Professor of Biblical Learning in the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. From his magnificent estate he donated to the Episcopal Church the tract on Ninth Avenue between Twentieth and Twenty-first streets, and the Theological Seminary there erected is a lasting monument to his liberality and devotion to the sacred cause.
In the intervals between the time devoted to more serious studies his principal amusement was writing short poems for the amusement of his children, and among them was "The Visit of St. Nicholas," which was written for them as a Christmas gift about 1840. The idea, he states, was derived from an ancient legend, which was related to him by an old Dutchman who lived near his father's home, and told him the story when a boy.