The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1892-12-21

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ones own freside; but there is fine
compensation for absence from home
on this brightest and best of anniversa-
ries in finding oneself in the streets of
London on the eve of Christmas, a spec
tator and part of the great Christmas
tide of expectant, happy, smiling hui
manity flowing in counter currents
through Bond street, Holborn, the
Strand, and eddying and whirling
around Charing Cross; and when, with
heart warmed with the glow reflected
from thousands of sparkling faces, to
see this city of a million homes and
thousand churches blaze forth with
Christmas lights from basement to roof,
from chancel to belfry, the mystic spell
of the anniversary becomes wondrous,
overwhelming, complete.
But when Christmas dawns, one
should leave the bewildering maze of
this vast city for some old English vii
lage where the beauty and traditions of
the day possess cameo-like unity and
relief; and the farther this shrine is re-
moved from the rush and roar of the
nineteenth century the sweeter will be
the flavor of the anniversary and the
more redolent of its old-time incense.
The village green, buttressed by the
ivied church and manse at one end, and
the old hostelry and smithy forge at
the other, the noble hall half visible in
it's park, and ancient farmhouses
neighboring near, make up a mis- en-
scene for charming Christmas that
,Of Il Al TWok 41,a
sembling worshipers aechng park and
green, you follow on, pause in Gods
Acre for look at the old yew trees
and the billowy sod where the rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep, and
enter the rough stone temple to whose
plain interior tender and sympathetic
hands have lent grace and freshness
with clusters and festoons of holly and
mistletoe, and where Christmas has
been sacredly celebrated for centuries
save when Cromwell's soldiers put
down the ''papisticar' worship or dur
ing the pitiable War of the Roses. Your
mind dwells mainly in the misty past
during the service, for Celts, Britons,
Saxons, Danes and Normans have knelt
before you on this spot, many of them
under this same roof, and do not the
symbols gathered from the remnants of
old Druidical groves blend the credo of
the Christian with the worship of Bell?
As the day declines and you have
your choice between the hospitality of
Norman hall and the festivities at some
| old farmhouse where the Saxon dweIs,
hie then to the latter, for Christmas is
but play under the patronizing smiles
of rank and fashion, while in the soil
imbedded home of the descendant of
Ce1t or Saxon you shall see the greatest
of Christian anniversaries celebrating
at the same hearth with the first of
pagan festivals las you saw them COM
memorated at the same morning altar)
and each claiming the day in honor of
its nativity. In the midst of the fete
where hospitality reigns with gladness
the carols are heard without and the
door swings wide open for the singers.
In they troop, and as they chant of a
Saviour born this day in the cave Of
Bethlehem, and of peace on earth, good
will to man, the blazing yule log of
the sun worshipers ilumines the room
with tidings of scarce less import, tell.
ing that on this day the source of all
light and life has emerged from the
grave of the winter solstice to break
the icy bands of death and restore to
man the fructifying spring, the ripen-
ing summer and golden autumn.
I have chosen England for the zOct of my
Christmas scenes, for there one is
brought into closer sympathy with the
spirit and traditions of this great dual
anniversary than in our modern
| America.
Centuries before the shepherds
watched their hocxs on the Syrian hills
in the dawn of the Christian era the
Egyptian priests had traced the zodiac
in the heavens and blazoned the 25th
of December as the day of the deliver
ance of the sun from the darkness and
bands of the winter solstice, and for
centuries before the lightof Christianity
burst forth from the grotto of Beth1e-
hem the fire a1tars of the Orient. the
sun wheels of Germany and the yule
logs of Britain celebrated this day as
the resurrection of nature from death
unto life. Does it detract from the
beauty and splendor of the Christian
holiday that all nature joins in its
hosannahs to that infinite and benign
Providence which heedeth the spar
rows fall and the sun in its course
with the same care and solicitude that
proclaimed from the angelic skies of
Bethlehem: "Peace on earth, good will
to man?" GEO. W. VAN HORNE.