Читать книгу A Tale of Two Monkeys, and other stories онлайн

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The little penitents were forgiven, for they seemed really sorry. But soon afterward one of the midgets carefully removed the glasses from the doctor’s spectacles, twisted the bows and put them in the stove, from which they both took ashes and sprinkled round the room. Fortunately there was no fire in the stove, for the next thing in order was the discovery of a gross of matches, which they scattered over the floor.

This began to look like danger, so the doctor was obliged to sell them to Mr. Barnum. But, whenever he went to visit them, as he often did, they greeted him with unmistakable signs of delight and affection.

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What is the most beautiful Christmas story in the world? It is found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew tells the story of the wise men and the star, and Luke of the shepherds and the angels; and Luke’s story is the longest, but together they make the most wonderful story that ever was written. It is a great truth, so great that we cannot learn it all, and the heart of that truth is love. God our Father is a great Spirit, filling the earth and heavens, and we, his children, are spirits made in his likeness, living in earthly bodies, and he has made all things that are. When his children were forgetting their Father, and losing their likeness to him, he so loved them that he said, “I will go down and live among them, and teach them how to live and how to love.” So he began to live just as we all begin to live in this world, by being a helpless little child. He was first loved by Mary, the mother, and then Joseph and the shepherds, and the wise men all adored him.