The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1903-12-22

modern display OF 1t is not disgraceful,
as it was in the days of Roman Satur-
MALTA.
The generous tables and heavy meals
of the season are traceable to our
Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Teuton an
cestors; though it would be unjust to
accuse them of international gluttony.
They needed more food than we be-
cause of their colder houses and the
demands made upon food to keep them
warm.
Now as to the time of the year chosen
for the celebration, this is not Chris
tian in any sense. The commenora-
tions of the ancients were all at this
time of the year for one most sufficing
reason, and we have inherited since
the fifth century the time that they
had selected and commemorated for
ages before.
Why was there universal desire to
rejoice and be merry at the end of the
year Not because the year was
dying, but because among all those
early peoples, rising their eyes to the
world around them and to the Heavens
above them for some explanation of
the mystery of life, there had come a
reverence for the sun. This heavenly
body, worshipped in many forms as a
giver of life and heat, was during early
winter seen to sink lower and lower in
southern sky, then stand still, then
rise again. 1t was this triumph over
his enemies, the powers of darkness,
right after December 21st that caused
joy in northern breasts. They knew
light was again to prove victorious;
that earth would later be blessed by
the suns power and bring forth and
multiply it's living forms. Their
simple souls, so much more Immediate
ly dependent upon the sun than ours,
few into ecstacies of delight. Thus
through the ages grew up rites and
ceremonies and ideas that embodied
their joy, one nation using on, form
and another a different one.
Thus Christmas is seen to be in its
date and in many of it's peculiar feat
ures, patch work of many forms of
celebration brought from many lands
and ages and woven under Christian
influences into one beautious fabric
covering all that is best and sweetest
in human impulses of kindness, gentle
ness and peace.
1t may well be asked how it happen
ed that this blending of Christmas
ideas into one form did not take place
ages ago. The question is easily ans
wered-in those ages of Paganism
there was very little mingling of races
on friendly basis and therefore very
little sympathy for the ideas of the
conquered. The northern people of
Europe developed for centuries quite
ignorant of the mighty Roman growth
to the south of them. Migration was
limited, beliefs were narrow and un-
yielding, and the rites of one people
were regarded as sacred from innova-
tion. A day of fuller, deeper, better
understanding has swept much of this
away and hence with perfect good
feeling and without bias against the
ideas of others we set ourselves in 1908
once more to the delightful task of
making the end of the year a period
of gladness and expectancy for better
days yet to come.
The swallowing up of heathenism by
Christian thought practically marks
the time when the birthday of Christ
came to grace the 25th of December.
For about one hundred years after His
death no general celebration of His
birth occurred. Then for three hum
dred years or more it was celebrated
at different dates in the year in differ
ent parts of the world. Then came the
practical triumph of the new over the
old, and the last of the year was chos-
en- for the formal celebration. The
ancient religions died, but their forms
survive to the present day. The mild
er tidings of a milder God than was
believed in of old have rendered these
old religious forms harmless in their
effects, and made them surrender OF
their picturesqueness and poetry tc
the honor of a cradle and The Child.