The Green Forest tribune., 1909-12-24

Egyptians, but they require clever to hunt them out man capable of getting great results from small data"
 At the period when these authors wrote all learn ing and science confined very circle of initiates The common folks were kept in strict gno- of the true meaning of their festivals; the mys- teres hidden book their significance and only the outward visible sign celebrations within their ken How the secrets were kept by these lntiates-a combination compared with which our steel and trusts sink into insignicanee is too well known to every student Thus in many it is impossible to trace definitely the actual these ancient myths and customs and any attempts force, must necessarily remain much in the nature of patchwork quilt scrap gathered here there from the ancient writings helps to work up the quilt ultimate stage has a somewhat crazy appearance.
 It is all the exasperatng. many these early writers, such Herodous, Putarch others have stopped short in ther screeds just few ex. ra words would have eased the knots that us from unravelng the skein. They initiates and thus to silence Their oaths however not pre- vent them whetting curiosity and leaving po- stion where Plutarch cynealy remarks it would in deed be clever task to get great results from small data"
 Athenaeus, another of the old Greek gossipers in speaking of the policy of the Romans in adopting toms of peoples whom they had conquered says is the conduct of prudent to abide by those institutions under which they their ancestors have lived, and made upon and subdued the the world; and yet at the time, if there any use- full or honorable institutions among the peoples whom they have subdued those they take for their the time they take their prisoners. And this was the conduct of the tme for they main ta1nng their national customs, at the time duced from the nations whom they had subdued every relic of desirable practices which they found This measure the policy of the early fathers in adapt ing heather feasts and sacrifices to the festivals church. With them, however it rather case of adaptation than of adopton believing that the der of things would easier to the Christian religion if the changes not made sweeping too harsh. Thus it is that many the customs connected with festivals have us from time long prior to the birth of the Saviour
 Unlike the many customs connected with the celebra in nj he Of thn Moru Year seems to bear of the stamp of organism At the same time such customs show rather close blance due in large to the fact that both be traced the celebrations the the Saurnaia and winter sostice, when the year went out and the came in period of general re- jocing, and it must be admitted of degree dysm, noise and license which all the fuminations church councils in the Middle Ages and orders of chiefs of police in these days been unable to suppress The youngster of to-day his horn is just prominent in creating racket his prototype of a couple of thousand years ago.
 Of late years period of noise has been largely re- stricted to the of Christmas and New Year but mery the period closely following Christmas day of continuous jolfcation. Mummers perambulated of the and villages and the Lord Misrue the Abbot of UnreasOn the Abbas Stutorum held sway The "Fete of Fools celebrated on the three days following Christmas. eliminating Holy /. day in general jamboree in which not the spared Young people themselves up the great dfgnitares of the church. very offices to have been paraded in the churches The second of the Council held in 1260 put under pain of communication all such masqueraded bishops, etc. At the councils held Nantes in 1431 and Bourges in 143S fulmna lions hurled against the "Fete of Fools" while 1912 the celebration abolished by the days following Christmas is not extinct in dis ricts of France and elsewhere but the celebration has been shorn of much of its pcturesqueness and the same time of it's extreme license.