San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-12-12

SIItuU, Ills are
ed, and whatever else may grace his
table, a plum pudding stuck with ber-
ry-laden holly will, if possible, be
there, and a bunch of mistletoe not
far off. Customs strongly savoring
of Panganism, without doubt, and
handed down from heather ancestors,
who were, nevertheless, in their own
time and way, good men and true.
Christmas is the Christian Saturnal
when even the StricteSt and most dec
orous, cOuntenances some degree of
license. The polite leaders of our
faith in the earliest days of Christian
ity thought it wise to graft most of
the rites and ceremonies of PaganiSm
upon the doctrines of Christ in order
to make the latter popular. Thus they
caused His birth to coincide with the
Roman Saturnalia which for a whole
week from the 18th to the 18th of De-
cember commemOrated the freedom
and equality that existed during the
whole of the golden reign of Saturn.
We are told that long before the foun-
dation of Rome these heather feasts
were remarkable for their universal
liberty. Slaves were permitted to rid
lCuiC anu W blSSubS
every topic with freedom. Friends
made presents 10 one another, the
schools were closed, no criminals We're
executed, public and private animOs-
ity ceased. While they lasted, war
was never declared, and mirth, riot,
and debauchery had full swing. Dur
ing the sacrifices the priests made
their offerings with uncovered heads,
which was never done at any other
festivals. The letters were removed
from the public statues of the god, to
whom every emancipated slave de-
voted his own. The temples were
decked with holly and ivy, and other
sacred evergreens, and as profusely as
our own were in the last century,
when Miss Jenny Shipper thus COM
planned to the Spectator Our
clerk, who was once a gardener, has
this Christmas so .overdecks the
church with green's that he has quite
spoilt my prospect, insomuch that l.
have scarce seen the young barOnet
for three weeks, and unless the green's
are removed, l shall soon have little
else TO do in church than TO say my
prayers"
The holly and the mistletOe are in
digcnOuS although not peculiar to this
country, and the latter, as every one
knows, was prominently the sacred
plant of the Druids, that mysterious,
learned, and remarkable caste whose
history remains to be written. In the
Scandinavian mythology, the mistle-
toe was consecrated on a memorable
occasion and for a most beneficent
purpose, TO Friga, the Northern god
dess of love. For the protection of
her son Balder, an oath was imposed
on all things of earth, air, fire and wa
ter, not to injure the beautiful young
god. The mistletoe alone from it's APP
parent harmlessness, was excepted,
and it was with an arrow fashioned
from its wood that Loki, the evil one,
slew him. All nature bitterly mourn
ed his death until Hela pitied and re-
stored him to his mother, and from
that time the fatal plant was conse-
Grated TO Frlga-our native Venus,
that it might henceforth become an
instrument of love but never more of
hatred. Thus at Christmas, when the
Druids were wont to cut it with gold
en- knives, we pass under its branches
with kisses, and formerly, whenever
~ wac SNHiNNf Jul liOl W DG
defrauded of their customary rites,
made kissing lunches of evergreens
ornamented with oranges and ribbons,
to do duty instead.
His must be a sour heart that can
view these sweet old customs with any
other feeling than that of genial ap-
PROBATION. Hundreds of generations
nave enjoyed them and made merry
over them, the young and the unlearn-
ed in happy and innocent thorughtless-
ness. while the learned and phiIo-
sophie have busted themselves with
the deeper import that lies beneath
their popular surface. These see in
them the relics of a universal religion
devoted to nature, whose origin is
shrouded in the Cimmerian gloom of
the north, and in the myths of re-
hottest antiquity. They observe their
close relation, not to the Saturnalia of
Rome alone, but to the Egyptian Pam