Robert Louis Stevenson 
Christmas Sermon 

‘A Christmas Sermon’ is an emotional and powerful piece. Written by Stevenson as he recuperated from another lung issue outside New York, he ponders the questions of life, death, morality and man’s place in it all. His prose is beautiful, his pondering interrupted by philosophy and a healthy dose of poetry. It is an emotional read, seeing such a great literary mind facing down the long journey, but *spoiler alert* it ends happily. Stevenson concludes that man’s purpose is "to be honest, to be kind, to earn a little and spend less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence". They are questions we all ask ourselves, questions that can make us feel hopelessly lost, but we aren’t, we’re just figuring things out. This little sermon packs a punch, it is incredibly cathartic pondering the questions of life with one of the greatest literary minds of all time, and as such is perfect reading for anyone.-