New-York tribune., 1902-12-21

carly Christians knew Bishop Julius knew
nothing of the Christmas tree, the Santa Claus
sleigh, the mistletoe bough. the Yule log' ana
many another merry rite so characteristic OF
the present holiday. Although the season IS
commemorative of the birth of Christ, never
theless it has many associations that are OF
pagan origin and which antedate Christianity
1t seems impossible that the great-grandson or
the man of to-day may not care so much about
Christmas as his great grandfather does that
he may not in his childhood lie awake on the
night before the holiday to catch glimpse of
its patron saint filling his stockings that he
may not be expected, when man. to contribute
to the employees fund at his office, fee all his
servants at home. and bestow upon the letter
carrier. the bootback, the barber, the waiter,
tht coal man and the butcher boy especial
cift to show his deep gratitude. or that he may
rot enjoy all the other merry things so charac-
tcristic of the day in the year 1902.
Nevertheless what man has done at one time
he may do ut another The great grandson OF
the citizen of the sixteenth century allowed the
merry Christmas of his forefather to decline
into threadbare, grassgrown relic. which was
about as important in his life as Evacuation
Day is fast getting to be in the life of the mod
erl New Yorker Throughout the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries Christmas was not
generally regarded holiday. Indeed. the
revival OF It's CuSlOiIS Dt 0e'4b ~ ~ 4'1NS
over Il century old.
The Koundheads of Oliver Cromwell and
their cousins the Puritans of NewEngland,
almost succeeded in oDliterating the Christmas
festival from England and America. AS an illus
tration of the adherence with which they held
its merry features there law in the Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony which prohibited the eat
ing of 'mince pie at this season of the year.
The man who decorated his house with the
holly and evergreen was regarded as having
committed an act of sedition. In Scotland at
one time and a hundred years ago more,
the staid Presbyterians were severely averse to
any merryInakings; and in France the revolu-
tionists of the latter part of the eighteenth
century fiercely denounced the institution of
Christmas idOlatrous.
In going back through the field of English
literature the reader finds little mention OF
Christmas between the times of Shakespeare
and those of Scott. In the reign of Queen
Elizabeth the day merry one, and before
her King Henry VII. according to his historian,
is said to have kept his Christmas" or. in
other words to have observed instead OF SIMPLY
spent the day.
The iollv Dutchmen who discovered the island
of Manhattan and enjoyed their pipes while
their neighbors were burning witches in Salem,
should have much of the credit of saving Christ
mas from the fate which its many enemies had
planned for it. st. Nicholas. better known per-
haps at the present time as Santa Claus was
the patron saint of the New-Netherands. ana
even after the English raised the red Union
Jack at Battery Park the Dutch youngsters stili
continued to hang up their stockings. From the
immigration of Germans to this country in
later times we have obtained the story of kriss
Kringle and the Christmas tree From TeutonIo
sources also, has come the Yule log, which the
early Germans were wont to burn with the be-
lief that they were thus destroying old wrongs,
old sorrows and old sins; and that so long as the
log was burning the heart should be happy. To