New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-12-26
is not what this swindled and tax-ridden city Is
Just now laundering after.
TrJF CUPJSTU1S FEAST.

The Christmas festival originally marked
reaction against worldliness and riOtous rev.
elry. The early Christians had no fixed day fol
celebrating the birth of the Messiah. The ira
ditiOns of various Churches differed in regard
| to the date, although there was general con-
currence of opinion respecting the midnight
hour. Several days in December were men
toned as the date of the Nativity, and in some
communities no distinction was made between
it and the Epiphany; and there was DISPOSE
ton in some quarters of the miniature Chris
tan world to deprecate the observance
of special days, and to , commemorate
every day in the year the birth, life, death and
resurrection of the Redeemer. The impulse to
determine precise date and to convert the
day of the Nativity into sacred festival came
from the early Church of Rome. The Saturnalia,
religious feast in the days of the Republic, had
degenerated under the Empire into q carnival
of revery, intemperance and crime. For the
better part of a week in mid-December, Ordl-
nary business was suspended and the pOpulace
of Rome abandoned themselves to holiday in
diligence, street parades and brawls, gluttOnous
feasts and criminal excuses. These
were the red-letter days of a Pagan
ism that had abandoned sef-restraint
renowned morality, and ceased to have faith in
anything higher than ignoble pleasures and de-
grading passions. 1t was to emphasize their
contempt for this brutal and riotous festival
that the Christians at Rome established their
religious feast. 1t was simply Christ -mass-a
special service of prayer, praise and COM
munion, held in the lonely watches of the night
when the Divine Child was reputed to have
been born.
While Christmas was originally religious
holiday, cOnsecrated to secret prayer and mid
night worship, ut a season when the pagan
world was abandoning itself to worldliness and
sensuality, it has retained many of the charac-
teristic features of the ancient festival of the
Saturnalia. The Roman children under the
Republic as we'll as the Empire were accustomed
to receive presents in the joyous days of De-
cember-cheap, tawdry and clumsy in compar-
ison with the jewclled gold-laced dolls and
thOusand-and-One mechanical devices and in
gcniOus toys of to-day, but none the less tokens
OF affection in the household. There was an
immense attendance at the gladiatOrial cOmbats
and town shows, precisely as the theatres of
to-day do their largest business in Christmas
week. The dinners during the Saturnalia were
the most sumptuous of the year, just rs the
Christmas dinner now holds the highest calen-
dar rank in Germany. England and America.
Indeed, if we go bacl, only little way toward
the Middle Age, it will be to find signs of the
Pagan Saturnalia in its worst estate-the grotes-
que follies, the incrdinate feastng, the ribaldry
andlicentiouSness and the wantOn crime, against
which the Chrstmas-mas was solemn protest
and warning. But the day has never ceased to
have its religious fcryOr and significance, even
when austcre and bigotcd Protestants have set
their faces stenly against it. Not one of the
Christian centuries has lost the lesson Ofthe fes
tival, even when men had TO preach it to them
selves without Bible which they were able to
read, and with only little child in the house
hold to remind them of the innocence of the
Christ Child.
There il no reason TO believe that in America
the religious fcrvor has departed. As the preju
dicrs of Puritan ancestry have been
gradually overcome, the festival year
by year is more generally celebrated
in churches Of all denominations. Baptist col
lcgcs have rrcd their holiday recess from
Thanks, Day to Christmas Christmas
sermons are heard from Congregational pulpits;
and Christmas carols are sung in Methodist
hand with Christian charity. Nowhere in
Christcndom are the poor remembered so gen
erously as in American cities. The genuine
Christmas spri, Of goodwill to men shines
through the matter-Of-fact Yankee holiday.
Originality may be lacking in the customs, but
neither fervor in the worship nor kindly feeling
for the poor. Americans have certainly a char
acteristic way of observing Christmas, even if
they have no distinctive traditions or associa
tons. They keep the feast with true Yankee
energy, exhausting themselves, body and mind,
with the press and rush of holiday traffic, en-
largng year by year the number, if not adding
TO the cost, of their Christmas gifts, and incur
ring the risk of sacrificing the serene restful-
ness of the day by undue preparation and over
work. But they also keep the feast with sim
cerity and truth-the best characteristics of the
Christian Saturnalia of NIL ages.