Books with title My First Christmas Treasury

Henry van Dyke (1852-1933) was an American author, educator, and clergyman. He graduated from Princeton University, 1873, and from Princeton Theological Seminary, 1874 and served as a professor of English literature at Princeton between 1899 and 1923. In 1908-09 Dr. Van Dyke was an American lecturer at the University of Paris. By appointment of President Wilson he became Minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors. He chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, The Book of Common Worship of 1906. Among his popular writings are the two Christmas stories The Other Wise Man (1896) and The First Christmas Tree (1897). Various religious themes of his work are also expressed in his poetry, hymns and the essays collected in Little Rivers (1895) and Fisherman's Luck (1899). He compiled several short stories in The Blue Flower named after a story by Novalis in 1902. He also contributed a chapter to the collaborative novel, The Whole Family (1908).

The story tells of how Prince Gregor, and his hero, the daring Winfried of England, journey through treacherous land to reach the heathen people of the forest on Christmas eve. When they arrive, Winfried rescues the heathen from an unspeakable evil, destroys the great oak tree where they worshiped their false god, and points to a young fir tree, "the tree of the Christ-child," as the people's new sign of worship, symbolizing laughter, songs, and rites of love.