Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1883-12-20
THE ENGLISH CHRISTMAS.

The English Christmas tradltlOn makes
good cheer the glory of the day. Forty
years ago when Leech was beginning his
career, Kenny Meadows was the character
artist'of the Illustrated London Nelrs, and its
chief holiday pictures were drawn by him.
They were all scenes of eating and drinking,
of games and jollity. They were full OF bot
ties and smoking bowls, of roast beef and
plumb pudding and mince pie, of burning
! brandy and kissing under the mistletoe.
"Old Chistmas" was represented as q
| flowing bearded satyr, crowned with ivy
and pouring huge fagons of wine, or as a
rollicking boon companion stretching out
one hand to the spectator over decanters
and jugs and glasses, while the other holds
an open tankard. The typical faces of the
Christmas figures were those of the rubl-
cund middle class John Bull and his hearty
daughter gayly resisting the efforts of the
young soldier-Irving's Julia and the Cap
tain-to draw iler under the permissive
bough or of the buxom chambermaid and
greedy children in frenzy of delight over
the smoking plum-pudding. Christmas, ac-
cording to these delectable pictures, was all
guzzling and gobbling, love-making and
other blindman' 's-buff; and as the reader OF
to-day looks with amused curiosity at these
holiday sketches of yesterday, he too, like
the stranger by the fire in Bracebridge Hall,
through all the fun and the feasting, hears
the music of the old Christmas song:
",Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale,
Twas Christmas told the merriest tale
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer
The poor mans heart through half the year.
This is the spirit of Dickens Christmas
and of Thackeray's, and in great degree,
of Irving's, touched in all of them by the
modern humanitarian sentiment. 1t is the
traditional English Christmas, when no man
should 90 hungry. For there is no JOY upon
an empty stomach-eXcept, indeed, the thin
ecstasy of the starving saints in old pictures,
and they were already dehumanized. This
is a Christian truth which asceticism has
forgotten. The popularity ofthis charming
essay shows that this is the Christmas of the
English-speaking race. Even the New
England air, which was so black with SER
mons that it suffocated Christmas, now muir
murs ~ softly with Christmas bells The chill
dren of the resolute God-fearing men who
did not rest from labor on that first Christ
mas morning now rest and rejoice in the
happy day whose dawn is a benediction.
But it is no longer a superstition of any
scarlet woman, no longer festival whose
observance implies perilous adherence to
papal or prelatical errors. The purifying
Spiritual fire, historically known as Puri-
tanism, has purged the theological and &C.
clesiastical drOss away, and has left the pure
gold of religious faith and human sympathy.
When the neophyte asked his confessor
what was the central truth Of Christianity,
the old man answered, "Charity.' Then
he explained that charity meant love, and
that love meant the spirit of universal fra
ternity. The almsgiving which is the tech
nical Interpretation Of the word is but a
symbol of that giving Of the heart and soul
and life to help others of which the supreme
sacrifice of Christ is the accepted type. The
day that commentaries His birth is the
festival of humanity, as the inspiring senti-
ment of actual life. The lovely legends of
the day, the stories, and the songs, and the
half fairy lore that gathers around it, the
ancient traditions of dusky woods and mys-
tic rites the magnifcence of simplicity of
Christian observance, from the Pope in his
triple tiara, borne upon his portatiVe throne
in gorgeous state to celebrate pontiticial
high mass at the great altar of St. Peters, to
George Herbert humbly kneeling in his rus
tic church at BemertOn, or to the bare
the American frontier; the lighting or
Christmas trees and hang ging up of Christ
mas stockings, the profuse giving, the hap
py family meetings. the dinner, the game,
the dance-they are all the natural signs
and symbols, the flower and fruit, Of Christ
mas. For Christmas is the day of days
which declares the universal human con-
sciousness that peace on earth comes only
from good will to man.-GeO. IPa. Curtis,
J in Harper's Magazine for December.
aeg- An Irishman, on being asked why he
did not fatten his horse, which was very
thin, replied that the poor baste could hard
ly carry what mate he had now.