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    The First Christmas Tree
    The First Christmas Tree
    The First Christmas Tree
    Ebook31 pages26 minutes

    The First Christmas Tree

    By Henry Van Dyke

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The First Christmas Tree A Story of the Forest : Classic Christmas Children's Book
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateNov 1, 2012
    ISBN9781625580764
    Author

    Henry Van Dyke

    Henry Van Dyke (1928–2011) was born in Allegan, Michigan, and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where his parents were professors at Alabama State College. He served in the Army in occupied Germany, playing flute in the 427th Marching Band. There he abandoned his early ambition to become a concert pianist and began to write. In 1958, after attending the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill and living in Ann Arbor, he moved to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Henry taught creative writing part-time at Kent State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1993, and was the author of four novels, including Blood of Strawberries, a sequel to Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes.

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    2.5/5

    12 ratings1 review

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    • 2/5
      Very short read, suspect it was originally in some sort of collection or pamphlet. Essentially about introducing pagans to Christianity.The bit at the convent sets up the characters of Gregor and Winfried but has little to do with the rest of the story.I think Gregor kind of takes the place of the reader in the story, asking the questions the reader might ask as Winfried teaches him about Christianity.Lke how Winfried sort of adopts a pagan ritual to bring them over to his side.

    Book preview

    The First Christmas Tree - Henry Van Dyke

    The Call of the Woodsman

    The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722.

    Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the glow of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of clearest, faintest azure bending overhead; in the center of the aerial landscape of the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel, gray to the east, purple to the west; silence over all,—a gentle, eager, conscious stillness, diffused through the air like perfume, as if earth and sky were hushing themselves to hear the voice of the river faintly murmuring down the valley.

    In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset hour. All day long there had been a strange and joyful stir among the nuns. A breeze of curiosity and excitement had swept along the corridors and through every quiet cell.

    The elder sisters,—the provost, the deaconess, the stewardess, the portress with her huge bunch of keys jingling at her girdle,—had been hurrying to and fro, busied with household cares. In the huge kitchen there was a bustle of hospitable preparation. The little bandy-legged dogs that kept the spits turning before the fires had been trotting steadily for many an hour, until their tongues hung out for want of breath. The big black pots swinging from the cranes had bubbled and gurgled and shaken and sent out puffs of appetizing steam.

    St. Martha was in her element. It was a field-day for her virtues.

    The younger sisters, the pupils of the convent, had forsaken their Latin books and their embroidery-frames, their manuscripts and their miniatures, and fluttered through the halls in little flocks like merry snow-birds, all in black and white, chattering and whispering together. This was no day for tedious task-work, no day for grammar or arithmetic, no day for picking out illuminated letters in red and gold on stiff parchment, or patiently chasing intricate patterns over thick cloth with the slow needle. It was a holiday. A famous visitor had come to the convent.

    It was Winfried of England, whose name in the Roman tongue was Boniface, and whom men called the Apostle of Germany. A great preacher; a wonderful

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