Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-12-25

Where the Custom of Decorating Churches
and Houses had its Birth. ---


and Houses had its Birth.
From the Providence journal.
1t has long been a mooted question whence
arose the custom of decorating houses and
churches at Christmastide. One would
think that the winter season of the year,
bringing as it does the naked trees with
their gaunt forms exposed to the biting
breeze, and claiming brook and river with
icy letters, would of itself suggest the COM
pensation of making indoors as green and
bright as possible. Fresh as bowers in June,
fragrant with hemloek and pine, green with
ivy, and scarlet with holly berries, shop and
home and church put on their summer garb,
and defy the winters gloom of our north
ern cline. To be sure, as regards our
churches, it is also customary to deck them
at other seasons, such as Easter and ALI
Saints, but the chief display of decorations
is confined to the time between Christmas
and Condemns.
Antiquarians, as We have intimated are
divided in their opinions as to the origin of
the custom. Our English ancestors very
likely derived the practice either from the
Celtic nations or from the Satr,rnaha of the
| Romans, possibly from both. Wherever
Druidism existed, the houses were decorated
! with eyergreens, so that the sylvan spirits
! might find there a safe shelter from the
| wind and the frost The oak mistletoe, an
essential element in the bloody ceremonies
of old magician priests, has become tender
| ly significant of the happiness and love
| that should abound at the joyous Christmas
season. When st. Augustine arrived in
Britain, he was wise enough to utilize the
Pagan customs by giving them Christian
significance, preserving such parts as were
innocent in themselves, and thus it is prob
able that the practice of decorating the
| homes and temples was continued. Such
method has been followed successfully by
modern missionaries, notably in the Sand
wich Islands, and travellers tell us of the de-
light with which these flower loving children
bring their tropical berries and
flowers to help in the identifying of their
| humble churches We think it Is unaues-
| tionable that the wise spirit of accommoda-
! ton shown by Augustine, in adopting
| various Pagan ceremonies to the use of
Christian worship, Was not only the cause
| OF his success as missionary, but also the
| reason why, especially, we Irvine at this
season the holly and the bay, and turn win
| ter into summer.
1t is an historical fact that the Roman
| Saturnalia Were celebrated at the same time
of the year as the feast of Christmas, but
whether the former had anything to do
with the latter, by way OF cause or COM
mon origin, it Is not easy to decide nor
/ indeed, essential. The Saturnalia began
| late III December, and when we compare
| the Christmas orgies and memories ill.,
| dulged in up 10 comparatively recent times,
the resemblance between the two feasts is
striking, even in particular details. The
Roman poet Horace speaks ''kbertas De-
F1-a.
school teacher might address to his class at
| Christmas, with trifing qualification:
Age, hbertate Decembri,-
Quando tia majores, yoluerunt, ultere.
The time came, however, when in the
strife for ascendancy, Christianity deter
mined to fight Paganism with the latter's
own weapons, and the customs and revel
ries were carried to such an extreme that
several early church councils forbade,
among other thing the decoration of pri-
vate houses after the manner of the Roman
Saturnalia. But the practice of adjoining
churches with flowers was not condemned,
as extracts from the writings of the early
Christians will show. In hi. work 6 De
Civitate Del" the African AT gustine speaks
of floral decorations, and u miricle
wrought by flowers brought from the shrine
of st. Stephen. Gregory of Tours praises
the holy Confessor Severous for having been
in the habit of decorating his church with
lilies. Nenantius Fortunatus, poet of the
fifth century senuIng 10 Rnadegund and
Agnes now and then bunch of violets, a
cluster of rose-buds or a spray of lilies is
severe in his contrast between men who
crowd their houses with oxotics, or women
who deck their breasts, and the more de-
voted and pious who bring their choicest
floral offerings to Gods house. And this
contrast is very evident III these days of
ours, when vast sums are lavished on flow
ers only doomed to wither in the hot air of
the ballroom, or to mingle their fragrance
with the odors of the dinner table.
English literature is full of illusions to
the use of Christmas green's. Our readers
will all remember the lively young woman,
| Miss Jennie Shipper, who wrote to Mr..
Spectator to tell HIM that their clerk had so
overdressed the church that it resembIed a
greenhouse more than place of worship
that the middle aisle was pretty shady
walk, and the pews on each side like SO
many arbors; that round the pulpit itself
were such clusters of ivy, holly and rose
mary that a light fellow in her pew sug-
gested that the congregation were like
Moses, and heard the word out Of a BUSH
She moreover feared that as her chief OBJ
ject in attending church was to make con-
quests, it was defeated by her prospects be-
ing spoiled by the evergreens, and that, un-
less they were removed, she would soon
"grow very awkward creature at church,
and have nothing to do but to say her
prayers" Wordsworth, in his sonnet on
church decking at Christmas, speaks of the
chuch made ''green with fresh holly" and
"every pew on which the Innet or the
thrush might sing" while Keble draws
lovely picture of the little maid hurrying to
the house of prayer, g shaping in her heart
wild green maze of woodland branches
there ;" and so one might quote something
of the sort from almost every writer of
note.
In these latter days the Christian world
seems to be getting back to the more tender
solicitude of early times in its care for the
identifying of our churches. There is now
what might almost be called a science of
decoration. Volumes are published upon
the subject profusely illustrated with every
sort of device to please the eye and inspire
the devotional feeEng-the cross heurla the
cross at once, the quarter-foll, the cinque-
foil, the vesica, the four, five and slx-polnt-
ed star, the illegible Greek characters,
bands, shields, diapers and medalions,
things equiring great neatness of design
and carefuluess of execution. There is all
the difference in the world between many of
our churches at Christmas and what they
were generation ago. The time has gone
by when a crowd Of young and old used to
go out into the damp, cold woods, cut down
the snow laden trees, or pull up miles of
ground pine and then sit for week of
nights in freezing church, to make the
trimmings for Christmas. The work is
done now in many instances by professional
decorators, and SO it is no more labor of
love on the part of the congregation, as it
certainly should be.
1t will not do to leave our subject without
mentioning the Christmas tree, popularly
so-called, though only of late years has it
been naturalized in England or our own
country. 1t is gift from Germany, yet
one who is curious in such matters might
perhaps trace it back to the toy pine tree,
| Lu,,ex nth oaeiZLn uhich hnrc and GIRLS in