ABOUT CHRISTMAS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 8

ABOUT CHRISTMAS

THE EVOLUTION

BARBARISM TO CHRISTIANITY

(fritter fey B. Sannders.)

"The festival of Christmas," the chronicler of long ago tells us, "is regarded as the • greatest celebration throughout the ecclesiastical year, and so important and joyous a solemnity is it deemed that special exception is made in its favow, whereby in the event of the annivertary falling on a Friday, that day of the week, under all other circumstances a fast, is transformed into a festival."

This authority, however, is not allowed all his own way in fixing the actual date of the Nativity. In the earliest records of Christmas it is found that some communities recognising the immaculate birth celebrated the festival on tho Ist or 6th of January; others on the 29th of March, the time of the Jewish Passover, and still others on tho 29th of September, the time of the Feast of the Tabernacles. But there is abundant evidence that long before the reign of Constantine, in the fourth century, tho season of tlfe New Year had been adopted as the period for the celebration, though a difference upo* this point existed between the Eastern and the Western Chftrches, the former observing the 6th of January for the festival and tho latter the 25th of December. The custom of the Western Church at last prevailed and the ecclesiastical bodies agreed to* celebrate thei anniversary on the same day. It does not necessarily follow, however, that harmony between the two churches definitely settled the problfem that had kept them apart.

Sir Isaac Newton, indeed, in his "Commentary on the Prophecies of Daniel," maintains that the feast of the Nativity, and moßt of the other ecclesiastical anniversaries, were originally fixed at cardinal points of the year, without any teference to the dates of the incidents they commemorated. As regards the observance of Easter and its accessory celebrations the same authority statef, there is good ground for maintaining that they mark fairly accurately the anniveraries with which they are associated, though there is no such evidence in regard to Christinas.* However, the present generation, following the lead of many preceding generations, is content to endorse the mandates of the e%rly churches and the ecclesiastical authorities of ancient Home. t THE DAWN. Long.before their general acceptance of Christianity, the people of Europe, particularly those of the southern countries, had established festivals at midsummer and mid-winter which bore some rude resemblance to the Christmas celebrations of a thousand years later. "In Rome during the festival of Saturn," we are told by an accredited authority, /'the city was marked by the prevalence of universal license and merry-making. The slaves were permitted to enjoy for a time a thorough freedom in. speech and behaviour. Everyone feasted and rejoiced, work and business were for a season entirely susupended, the houses were decked with laurels and evergreens, presents were made by pafents and friends, and all sorts of games and amusements were enjoyed by the citizens." In Northern Europe the celebrations were less refined. "Fires were extensively kindled," our authority»aversi "blocks of wood blazed in honour of Odin and Thor, and sacrifices, both of men and cattle, were made to the savage divinities." It is* not surprising to read that the bearers of the tenets of Christianity to these crude people found some difficulty in reconciling them to the precepts of the new' evangel. "In the early ages of Christianity," it is recorded, "its ministers frequently experienced the utmost difficulty in inducing their converts to refrain from indulging in the popular amusements which were so largely followed by their pagan countrymen. Among others, the revelry and license which characterised the Saturnalia called for special animadversion. But at last, convinced partly of the inefficiency ,of such denunciations, and partly influenced by the idea that the spread of Christianity might thereby be advanced, the church endeavoured to amalgamate, as it were, the old and new religions, and sought, by transferring the heathen ceremonies to the solemnities of the Christian festivals to make them subservient to the cause of religion and piety.'' TJltimately a compromise of this kind was effected between the clergy and the laity, and has endured down to the present time with only occasional attenjpta on the part of the less indulgent ecclesiastical authorities to proscribe gome favourite sport or pastime of the poople. LOWLANDS AND HILLS. During the last half-century the clergy have adopted a much broader view of the significance of Christmas than many of their predecessors entertained. Throughout the middle-ages and down to the period of the Kef ormation—again condensing from various sources—the festival, ingrtfted on the pagan rules of Yule, continued throughout Christendom to be universally celebrated with every mark of rejoicing. On the adoption of a new system of faith by most of the northern nations of Europe in the sixteenth century, however, the Lutheran and the Anglican Churches retained the celebration of Christmas and other observances, while the Calvinists rejected absolutely all saints' days, excepting Sunday, denouncing them as superstitious and unscriptural. In consequence of the Presbyterian form of Church government, as constituted by John Knox and his coadjustors on the model of the ecclesiastical polity of Calvin, having taken such firm root on the other sido of tho Tweed, the festival of Christmas, and other commemorative celebrations retained from the Roman calendar by: the Anglicans and Lutherans, were scarcely known in the Lowlands of Scotland fifty years ago. "The tendency to mirth and jollity at tho closo of the year, which seems almost inherent in human nature," says a writer of about that time, "has been in North Britain, for the mos* part, transferred from Christmas and Christmas Eve to New Year's Day, and the preceding evening, known by the appellation of Hogmenay." Since then, happily, another generation has arisen even in the Lowland! of Scotland, and on the rolling down* and hills of Otago, which realises that Christmas is a time for thankfulness and rejoicing, and for goodwill tawards all men, towards tho politician, towards the agent with an American notion to Ball, towards the neighbour with a cheap gramophone, and towards all their kind. The rub is to maintain this Christmas spirit through the whole Mmg year. It has to be added, by the way, that in many parts of tho Highlands of Scotland, in Forfar, anc in soveral other districts the traditions of the great festival always have been observed with becoming appreciation and zeaL SOME FRAGMENTS. The selection from a whole pile of material of a few dozen lines that would give the reader any adequate idea of the origin and development oi the Christmas festival is a task beyond me. One or two isolated paragraphs taken almost at random must complete my week's measure. "Tho farmers of Cheshire," we are told, presumably of a distant past, "suffer rather an uncomfortable season at Christmas time seeing that they, are obliged, for the

most part, during this period, to dispense with tho assistance of servants. According to an old custom of the county the servants engage themselves to their employers from Kew Year's Eve to Christmas Day, and then for six or %even days they leave their masters to shift for themselves. ... On the morning after Christmas Day hundreds of farm-servants, male and female, dressed in holiday attire, throng the streets, considerably to tho benefit of the tavern keepers and shopkeepers." Then S. T. Coleridge, whom with his initials few of us might have recognised as the most unhappy of the Lake poets, writes oi Christmas in Germany. There is no space to indicate tho character of his contribution here, Germany may take what action it pleases. The' inevitable Mr. Pepys tells of his Christmas experiences over a period of years. "Had a pleasant walk to Whitehall, where I had intended to have received tho Communion with the family," he records in 1662, "but I had come a little too late. So I walked into the house and spont my time looking over pictures, particularly the ships in KinoHenry the Eight's voyage to Bullaen; marking-tho great difference between those built then and now." Finally there is a recipe for a choice Christmas dinner dish. "Take clean wheat, and bray it in a mortar, that the hulls be all gone off, and seethe it till it burst and take it up and let it cool; and take clean fresh broth, and sweet milk jf almonds, or sweet milk of kine, and temper it all; and the yolks of eggs Boil it a little, and set it down and mess it forth with fat venison or fresh mutton." One begins to understand tho digestive equipment of the men who fought at Crecy and Acincouit. • °