The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

and storm, sorrow and sickness came, but Christmas came too.
Then came a bright year, not the most glorious, but the most happy
of his life. That great home-nature had never had a home. His Christmas
had been spent in the home of others. There came a Christmas, and by his
side, as he thanked God once more for the great gift to whose memory it
was consecrated, there knelt by him his wife, her hand in his, and her face
turned with his towards the world, whose light and song is the Babe of
Bethlehem. The heaven of the presence of children was in that home in
the Christmas of after years. Madeleine and Martin, Paul and Margaret,
immortal by their birth, were the olive-plants around the Christmas tree. In
the beautiful pictures by König, one of the happiest is devoted to Luther at
Christmas in the family circle. The Christmas tree blazes in all its glory in
the centre; the tapers imparting a new ravishment to those inconceivable
fruits, trumpets, horses, cakes, and dolls, which only Christmas trees can
bear. On Luther's lap kneels his youngest child, clasping him around the
neck. Its little night-cap and slip and bare feet show that it has been kept
from its bed to see the wonderful sight. On Luther's shoulder, and
clasping his hands in hers, leans Catherine, with the light of love, that light
which can beam only from the eye of a devoted wife and mother, shining
upon him. The oldest boy, under Melanchthon's direction, is aiming with
a cross-bow at an apple on the tree, recalling to our mind that charming
letter which his father wrote from Coburg to him, when he was only four
years old, in which are detailed the glories of that paradisiacal garden,
meant for all good boys, where, among apples and pears, and ponies with