Excerpt from The Stranger's Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present It is to recollections like these that the Stranger's Gift owes its origin. It is offered to those who have cheered the stranger's path through the for eign land, and who, in return, will kindly receive this token that they are remembered by him. He approaches them once more as a stranger, since at the time of Christmas, he can only feel at home among the scenes of the past; yet he indulges the hope that this Gift will serve to strengthen the ties by which he is united to them, that it will bring him near to many a kindred mind, to whom he is now a stranger in the literal sense of the word, and finally, that the spirit in which this Gift is presented will testify to the truth that we all are but strangers and pilgrims on the earth. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.