the leading ministers of the diiferent evangelical churches in New York (the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Dutch and German Reformed, Lutheran, Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist) freely united in the celebration of the atoning death of their common Saviour and in humiliation and prayer to the great edification of the people. It is acknowledged more and more that the observance of the great facts of the evangelical history to the honor of Christ is a common inheritance of primitive Christianity and in- separable from Christian worship. " These festivals " (says Prof. Dr. Hen- ry B. Smith in his admirable opening sermon of the Presbyterian General Assembly, N. S., of 1864, on Christian Union and Ecclesiastical Re-union), " antedate, not only our (Protestant) divisions, but also the corruptions of the Papacy ; they exalt the Lord and not man ; they involve a public and solemn recognition of essential Christian facts, and are thus a standing protest against infidelity; they bring out the historic side of the Christian faith, and connect us with its whole history; and all in the different denominations could unite in their observance without sacrificing any article of their creed or discipline." There is no danger that American Protestantism will transgress the limits of primitive evangelical simplicity in this respect, and ever return to the papal Mariolatry and Hagiolatry. The Protestant churches have established also many new annual festivals, 394 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. such as the feasts of the Eeformation, of Harvest-home, and of the Dead in Germany ; and in America, the frequent days of fasting and prayer, besides the annual Thanksgiving-day, which originated in Puritan New Enghmd, and has been gradually adopted in almost all the states of the Union, and quite recently by the general government itself, as a national institution. With the pericopes, or Scripture lessons, the Reformed church everywhere deals much more freely than the Lutheran, and properly reserves the riirht to expound the wLole word of Scripture in any convenient order according to its choice. The Gospels and Epistles mMy be read as a regular part of the Sabbath service; but the minister should be free to select his text from any portion of the Canonical Scriptures; only it is always advisable to follow a system and to go, if possible, every year through the whole plan and order of salvation in judicious adaptation to the church year and the wants of the people. § T7. The Christmas Cycle. Besides the general literature given in the previous section, there are many special treatises on the origin of the Christmas festival, by Btx^us, Kindlee, Ittig, Vogel, Wkrnsdorf, Jablonskt, Planck, Hagenbach, p. Cassel, «fec. Comp. Augusti : Archaeol. i. 533. Tlie Christmas festival ' is the celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God. It is occupied, therefore, with the event which forms the centre and turning-point of the history of the world. It is of all the festivals the one most thoroughly inter- woven with the popular and family life, and stands