Project Gutenberg 2023-03-15 Public domain in the USA. 106 Stanley, Caroline Abbot 1849 1919 Hoskins, Gayle Porter 1887 1962 12021146 The First Church's Christmas barrel $aUnited States :$bThomas Y. Crowell Company, $c1910, copyright 1912. David Edwards, PrimeNumber and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) "The First Church's Christmas Barrel" by Caroline Abbot Stanley is a fictional narrative published in the early 20th century, specifically in the early 1910s. The book addresses themes surrounding charity and the true spirit of Christmas, centering on the struggles of a missionary family as they face poverty and the complexities of receiving help from their home church. The narrative explores the contrasts between genuine generosity and the superficiality often surrounding charitable acts. The story follows Reverend John Haloran and his wife Mary as they navigate the hardships of frontier life, especially during the Christmas season. When a barrel of donated items arrives from the First Church, the couple anticipates relief and joy, especially for their four children. However, their excitement quickly turns to disappointment as they discover that the contents are largely unsuitable and insufficient for their needs. This leads Mary to take a strong stand against the church's neglect, igniting a call for genuine support rather than merely symbolic gestures. The story culminates in a meeting at the First Church where the women confront their own complacency and redefine what it truly means to give, ultimately learning that love and thoughtfulness should accompany acts of charity. (This is an automatically generated summary.) https://archive.org/details/firstchurchschri0000caro 20221128101809stanley 1910 us Reading ease score: 83.9 (6th grade). Easy to read. en Christmas stories Missionaries -- Fiction West (U.S.) -- Fiction Charity -- Fiction PS Text Category: Novels Category: American Literature 77754 2025-07-28T03:49:01.894366 text/html 76585 2023-03-15T00:29:01 text/html 619492 2025-07-28T03:49:05.089344 application/epub+zip 617693 2025-07-28T03:49:02.901371 application/epub+zip 164424 2025-07-28T03:49:02.325371 application/epub+zip 1060831 2025-07-28T03:49:06.787398 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 1050214 2025-07-28T03:49:04.624412 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 61977 2025-07-28T03:49:01.650376 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 61764 2023-03-15T00:29:01 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 19424 2025-07-28T03:49:06.940391 application/rdf+xml 21316 2025-07-28T03:49:02.523358 image/jpeg 3274 2025-07-28T03:49:02.420358 image/jpeg 24121 2023-03-15T00:29:03 application/octet-stream application/zip 593110 2023-03-15T00:29:03 application/octet-stream application/zip 613917 2025-07-28T03:49:01.914404 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia en.wikipedia