The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1888-03-15
E. L. E.
Receives q Pretty Token of
Remembrance,
Which Causes Him to Search
the Pages of Ancient
History
For Tie Origin Of the Observance Of
st. Valentines Day-The
Result Of His Re.
search.

Ots voA0mtAmO0 U8y-xu0
Result Of His Re.
search.
KANSAS Cry, Mo-, Feb 26, '88.
EDITOR NEws.HERALp:-I wonder il
the custom Of sending valentines was
observed in Hillsboro as it was here.
The mails were loaded with precious
little missives, and as all of us Ohio boys
were remembered thought as I opened
pretty little envelope that no more
beautiful expression Of kind rememb.
rance can be devised than that of send.
ing some tender token of our love to
those who are away off from us or who
cit within the thresholds of our hearts
or have become entangled in the meshes
of our memory. As l read the picture
of the valentine sent to me wondered
how many knew the origin of the
observance of the fourteenth day of Feb
ruary, and I looked for the. history Of
st. Valentine and found that "St. Valen-
tines Day" is involved in much
obscurity, great doubt and greater diff
ference of opinion between savant and
historian. That the festival had its birth
amidst the customs and practices OF
early paganism, there is, however, little
doubt, and its modern observance
strongly illustrates the hereditary ten.
dency of the civilization of to-day to
cling to the traditions and customs
which have come down, or up, to us
from the earliest dawn of social instinct
and domestic impulses in the bosom OF
humanity. The strongest feature of the
festival is that it should happen to de-
rive its name from one of the Christian
martyrs of the third century who, if he
was cognizant of the custom, doubt
less denounced it as a sinful relic
of paganism. st. Valentine was a priest
OF Rome who, for his devotion to the
gentle Nazarene was first stoned,and then
beheaded about the year $40, A. d.
For fifteen centuries his remains have
been resting beneath the marble flags in
the Church of st. Proxities in the eter-
nal city, and there is no evidence, what
ever. showing that he was in any man
ner responsible for the practice by which
cooling Joans and love lorn Darbies annu-
ally deluee each other with passion
charged billet doux on the fourteenth
of February, or any other date, so that
we are preforce compelled to seek for
the origin OF the day and of the deed at
some other or more distant source. The
most plausible theory concerning the
practice is that it is the natural evolution
of custom prevalent among the early
Greeks and Romans of mating, at GER
tain feasts, the unmarried men and
maidens of the tribes either by lot or in
some other manner designated by the
rules of that crude age when the rearing
of warriors was the most sacred duty
due the State. A custom in Sparta was
that at these festivals the maidens were
compelled to pass in nearly nude state
before the assembled young men and
warriors, who might thus be enabled to
wisely select the mothers of the future
defenders Of Greece. In Ancient Rome
the month of early spring was devoted
to feasts in honor of Juno and Panu, the
goddess Of marriage and the god of
shepherds. These feasts came with the
violets-
violets dim,
But swseter than the lids Of Juno's eyes
Or Cytheres's breath,
When shepherds tuned their mellow
reeds to notes of love.
At these Lupercalian festivities from
which the name February is derived, it
was the custom amid solemn rites and
sacrifcial offerings to place the name Of
all eligible maidens in box from whence
they were drawn by the young men, who
took to wife the virgin who had fallen
to his lot. 1t was highly important ia
Rome during the repub lie that every
citizen Of manageable age should enter
into wedlock and rear children, SO that
the enormous1military drafts and decima-
tions by war might be supplied. This
being the case it would seem that Mars
and not Cupid should be held response
BILE for the origin and customs of st.
Valentine's Day. The early Christian
fathers sought by every means in their
power to eradicate this and other
vestiges of pagan practices. At the
Lupercalian feasts the holy father SUBJ
stituted the names of saints for those of
maids, and those thus drawn became
the patron saints of those who drew,
yet through it all there ran the woof
and warp of earlier forms which sprang
from the necessities which environed
the ferce and warlike age when Sabin
Virgins torn from home by force because
the wives Of their despoilers and mothers
OF men who conquered all the western
world and planted Cesar's eagles on the
Tower Of David. From the fact that the
festivities Of Pan and Juno occurred about
tbs middle of February. st. Valentines
national day, which was the l4th Of
February, was finally adopted ~ the day
in the calendar ON which to celebrate
The birth Of spring and invoke the pip
Ing Of the shepherds Lutte upon the sum
III slopes. In early times the custom