Our Christmas Hymn.

By John Dickson Bruns, M.D., of Charleston, S.C.

"Good-will and peace! peace and good-will!" The burden of the Advent song, What time the love-charmed waves grew still To hearken to the shining throng; The wondering shepherds heard the strain Who watched by night the slumbering fleece, The deep skies echoed the refrain, "Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"

And wise men hailed the promised sign, And brought their birth-gifts from the East, Dear to that Mother as the wine That hallowed Cana's bridal feast; But what to these are myrrh or gold, And what Arabia's costliest gem, Whose eyes the Child divine behold, The blessed Babe of Bethlehem.

"Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!" They sing, the bright ones overhead; And scarce the jubilant anthems cease Ere Judah wails her first-born dead; And Rama's wild, despairing cry Fills with great dread the shuddering coast, And Rachel hath but one reply, "Bring back, bring back my loved and lost."

So, down two thousand years of doom That cry is borne on wailing winds, But never star breaks through the gloom, No cradled peace the watcher finds; And still the Herodian steel is driven, And breaking hearts make ceaseless moan, And still the mute appeal to heaven Man answers back with groan for groan.

How shall we keep our Christmas tide? With that dread past, its wounds agape, Forever walking by our side, A fearful shade, an awful shape; Can any promise of the spring Make green the faded autumn leaf? Or who shall say that time will bring Fair fruit to him who sows but grief?

Wild bells! that shake the midnight air With those dear tones that custom loves, You wake no sounds of laughter here, Nor mirth in all our silent groves; On one broad waste, by hill or flood, Of ravaged lands your music falls, And where the happy homestead stood The stars look down on roofless halls.

At every board a vacant chair Fills with quick tears some tender eye, And at our maddest sports appear Those well-loved forms that will not die. We lift the glass, our hand is stayed-- We jest, a spectre rises up-- And weeping, though no word is said, We kiss and pass the silent cup,

And pledge the gallant friend who keeps His Christmas-eve on Malvern's height, And him, our fair-haired boy, who sleeps Beneath Virginian snows to-night; While, by the fire, she, musing, broods On all that was and might have been, If Shiloh's dank and oozing woods Had never drunk that crimson stain.

O happy Yules of buried years! Could ye but come in wonted guise, Sweet as love's earliest kiss appears, When looking back through wistful eyes, Would seem those chimes whose voices tell His birth-night with melodious burst, Who, sitting by Samaria's well, Quenched the lorn widow's life-long thirst.

Ah! yet I trust that all who weep, Somewhere, at last, will surely find His rest, if through dark ways they keep The child-like faith, the prayerful mind; And some far Christmas morn shall bring From human ills a sweet release To loving hearts, while angels sing "Peace and good-will, good-will and peace!"