The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1899. A CHRISTMAS WORD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 51, 21 December 1899, Page 17

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1899. A CHRISTMAS WORD.

*Ms& ♦ — f^^^ff M^ approach of the Christmas festival once J more reminds us of the different standpoints i- from which the flight of time is varied by youth and by those who have reached or passed ** what Dante calls 'the midway of this our fo mortal life.' To the impatient schoolboy who ™ chalks up the days and hours that separate him f from his Christmas holidays, time plods on with the slow pace of an ox-team ; to the busy man of middle or advanced age its pace is that of a fast express

tram. It stops at no station in its onward rush, yet its annual passage through the Christmas period gives to youth and old age alike a brief glimpse, as it were, of an oasis of 'green trees and sparkling waters after long months of more or less and toil and grind. The innocent joys associated with this gentlest feast of all the year have entered so intimately into our social life at the close of this century, that we can scarcely realise that even in < Merrie England ' at one period any observance whatsoever of Chnstmas was placed under a legal ban. Both in England and Scotland the old relio-ious observance of the festival was swept away by the Reformation. The old-time social and domestis usages, however long survived. Under the Puritan regime Chr.'stmas was observed as a day of solemn fast. Parliament met to transact business on Christmas Day ; stringent orders were given that shops should be opened and markets be held ; Christmas decorations were forbidden ; the cbiming of bells was made a legal offence ; preaching or holding religious services on that day was punishable with imprisonment and fine ; in Scotland feasting and resting from work were penalised ; and, generally speaking, no effort was spared to blot out the memory of this ancient anniversary from the minds of the people.

The days of the anti-Christmas crusade died with the Restoration. The spiritual significance of the festival was however, gone ; but many of the old social and domestic customs of Catholic days have survived or been revived in lands and homes where the true purpose and spirit of the festival have been forgotten for over three hundred years. Charles Dickens stands forth as the new apostle of kindly Christmas greetings and good-will. He was instrumental in bringing back to the life of English-speaking peoples of our day more of the genial warmth of the old Catholic ' merrie Chrystemasse' than they had known since the days of the Reformation. The revival of the old Christmas idea shows itself in a thousand various ways. Thu=> far it is marked by a mere—but kindly— feasting and merry-making, and by a steady annual increase in the interchange of friendly gifts and greetings. The purely human element predominates vastly ; but all this neighbourly courtesy and friendship and affection and generosity form a ladder by which in due time the happy multitudes will, we trust, rise to the higher ideal of the Christmas festivities. Religious verse is already here and there and gradually working its way into the Christmas cards ; Christmas celebrations have already secured the force of custom in most Anglican churches ; other denominations show signs of following the lead ; and we may in time hope to see many of our separated brethren so far ' undo thr.work of the Reformation ' as to adopt in part or in whole the Latnohc conception of the spiritual significance of this <* reat festival. To the Catholic mind in old England there lay a world of meaning in the greeting— now revived— of 'a merry Christmas.' It was, in effect, simply a modern variant of St. Paul's inspired conception of the joy that should ever be present to those that couple true belief with righteous works : ' Rejoice in the Lord always ; again I say rejoice. We wish all our readers a full and flowing measure of this sacred joy. < Tiny Tm's ' brief but glorious pvayer was this: 'God bless everybody !' The infantile mind grasped the splendid significance of the great doctrine which: the Divine Babe of Bethlehem came to preach— the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. The gentle child s prayer thus becomes this festival in an altogether special way. And with him we say from our hearts : ' God bless everybody !'