THE CHRISTMAS TREE.
Wherever civilisation has engrafted Christianity upon a nation the Christmas tree has become a part of the celebration of the nativity of Christ. To all the Christian world, rich or poor, young or old, it represents a joyous season, when it is equally blessed to give and to receive, when unselfishness is the toast for every feast, when happiness reign in cottage and castle, not forgetting the five-room flat, and when children are the temporary rulers of the universe. Historically the Christmas tree can be traced back only to the sixteenth century. A valuable authentic manuscript of 1608, now in a private collection in Hesse, describes the Christmas celebrations very much as we have them nowadays, mentioning the tree and the carols. In an old book of the seventeenth century entitled ‘ The Milk of Cathechism, ’ the tree is again alluded to. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the decorated Christmas tree, carrying candles and gifts, was rarely met with except along the Rhine. But by the beginning of the nineteenth century all of Germany was devoted to the custom, and fifty years later it bad captured the universe.
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Bibliographic details
Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 35, 22 December 1900, Page 10
Word Count
191THE CHRISTMAS TREE. Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 35, 22 December 1900, Page 10
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