Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1903.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 152, 24 December 1903, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1903.

■ ■ ♦ ''Christmas is not what is used to bo !" So say some, hulf-rogretfully, recalling what they somewhere,' long since, it maybe, read of tho old-timo Christmas. It iiguros in Elizabethan literature, ty is a stock thonio of the p^oetu of tho Restoration, and still later Washington Irving cast over tho mythic Christmas of bygono days tho glamour of his genius. But, could that old-time Christmas by any possibility bo revived, none would bo moro scandalised than those who bentimeutiilly sigh for the "good old times." Tho Christinas of the past, with its deep carousals and thoughtless excess degenerating into riot, its rampant and uncouth horseplay, its licensed misrule, «. survival of tho heathen saturnalia, accompanied often with -sports which today would bo stigmatised us indecent, is gone,, and gone ior ever, and, it is well. Ohribtimui is not what it used to be, for tho o.d .world grows cleaner, luaro decorous in its mode* of eijjoyment, and loftior in its idoals. Year by year tho pagan element gradually drops out of (ho great popular icstivalj until its wholo complexion hus N changed. Wild and unrestrained revelry haa given place to rational enjoyments entailing no afterrepentance ; rude and offensive practical -joking is superseded by kindly consideration for others ; and with each succeeding roturn of the festival, as it deepens in significance, it seems, ut all events to those who look below the surface, brighter and happier than of yore. liero, with Iho "inverted year" of the South, it is diillculb to appreciate what tho grout festival meant to the Sunworshippers of history's dawn. Every OhrisLmua symbol that survives is eloquent of their old-time faith — the Christ-mas-tree Ygdrasil, the magic mistletoe, tho yulo log, tho boar's head, and the many vanishing, ceremonies and observances of the day. Twice in the year tho wenried sun rested in his course, and then slowly began to reverse- his movement, and the summer and winter solbtieds were seasons •of special moment to tho men of old. Especially was this tho coso in midwinter. The days wou'.d now begin to lengthen, the dreary winter j to pass, and soon tho earth would put ' on its garments of rejuvenation. Chris- ' tianity dethroned the old gods and overthrow their altars, but it could; not abolish tho popular festivals, so it did the only filing possible, 'b ondeavdordd to consecrate them. "It tho winter ■wild" when tho greatest festival of tho year was observed— what then more fitting than that it should henceforth commemorate the "eood tidings of great joy"? And so the myth gradually developed—for myth it is — that tho Christ \vns born in tho winter season, and by common cousont tho whole Christian wor'.d hns accepted the season of the northern win tor solstice for tho celebration of tho birth of Him whoso mission it was to "make all things new." The natural symbolism of tho soason was found conveniently appropriate — to us, observing our Christmas in the glorious summer nours, when the longest day has passed, it docs not work out in tho same way. But imperfect though the symbol niny bo, tho fact remains. To a. group of nineteenth-century writers," with Charlbs Dickens at their head, the present-day ideal of Christmas is largely dyi». The modern literature of tho season may be dated from "A Christmas Carol" of 1843. Dickons is not reckoned nmtfng • "roligiou*" writers, and tho rollicking idoa of mirth fashionable in his day is abundantly present in hit Christmas books ; but more, perhaps, than any other man he was instrumental in elevating tho national ideal of the festival. When a distinct ideal is formed, it begins at once to translate itsolf into reality. ChrlMmtiK, of 1903, under our cloudless sky, in city pArks, in sylvan glades, in tho green paddocks in tho country, as well as in tho temples of our worship, will bo worthily observed, as it will bo by the greut Anglo-Saxon people whore snow covers tho earth and the ; strenms arc ice-bound. In Now Zealand to-day none, can escape its spell, and ' its keynote is the great Christian message — "goodwill to men." Kindly thought takes visible form evon i* the toys* apd trinkots with which shop-windows aro filled ; postal officials aro borno down under tho burdens •of loving grootings that they havo to transmit from friend to friend— families, long separated, for a timo unite, even to tho third generation. To every patient in our city hospitols — to every little cot in the children's ward where infancy pationtly suffers—comos somo welcome token of remembrance from the world outside. Tho poor and Infirm in the rofuges, the mentally afflicted in the asylums, nil can mark off the 25th Decomber as the bright day of tho year. What though the boar's head and the snapdragon havo passed? — wo can dispense with them j we have something better. The great law of kindnosn — for a wKile, at any rato — is in its supreme and rightful place. Christmas is not what it \tsed to be — and so much the bettor. If any ono doubts whether it is what it ought to bo, ho should appeal to those bw»t ablo to judge. Let him ask tho children 1

CHRISTMAS DAY.