  “At Christmas play, and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.” So said good Thomas Tusser, many generations ago, and his words have echoed in the hearts of old and young, rich and poor, from his day up to this blessed Year of Our Lord, 1898. Let us thank God and take courage when we remember that the Power of Evil has no one Book to set off against the Bible, and no one day to match Christmas. It is one of the gladdest and fairest signs of the times that this merry holiday, so full of good-will to men, is drawing closer and closer to the heart of the nation. For this one season in the year, everybody is thinking of everybody else, instead of himself, and we join the wise men in their march across the desert, following the Star, until we, too, find ourselves upon our knees before the manger in which the young Child was. It is among the nations of the North, the Germans, The concurrence of the winter solstice with Christmas gave rise in the earliest times to many of the tales of Norse mythology. In the summer the good gods, Woden and Freia, with thousands of friendly elves, brought flowers and fruits to cheer the heart of man. But as winter came on, and the days grew ever shorter and the dark nights longer, the evil spirits held the good gods, enchanted by their power, far up among the snowy mountains, and prevented the passage of pious souls to their rest. Then came storms, and awful things upon the earth. A many-headed monster roamed the village, seizing the children, throwing them into a sack, and devouring them at its leisure. Giants descended from the hills and robbed the lonely traveler. In Denmark a frightful creature covered with a hairy robe was wont to creep into houses after dark to steal the products of the harvest, and, if it found nothing, As Christmas time draws near, and the sun turns northward once more, Woden issues forth upon a white horse, and, followed by howling packs of dogs, drives the evil spirits to their hiding-places in the mountains. Sometimes in his wild hunt he sweeps through a house and leaves behind him a dog, who crouches upon the hearth and stays there for one year, whining, moaning, feeding on ashes, and snapping at all who approach. On the next Christmas, Woden comes for him again, and the dog leaps through the chimney to rejoin the howling pack in the tree-tops. To this day the Germans associate the coming of Christ with the return of the sun, and the approach of spring. One of their poets sings: “The sun in winter is God in grief, Is Christ who cometh to bring relief. Beneath its blessed radiance, man Forgets that his life is but a span. “The sun in winter is Christmastide, Which scatters its blessings far and wide, And sheds, through faith, o’er time’s dark sea, The morning rays of eternity.” “That Christmas is a holiday of light and victory,” begins Cassel, in his account of the day, And now the wonderful hour draws nigh. It is Christmas Eve. All nature is hushed. As the shepherds once sat around their fire upon the plains of Bethlehem, discussing, perchance, the strange portents attending the birth of the son of Zacharias, so to-night the peasants in their huts along the shores of the Baltic, or in the shadows of the Black Forest, sit before the Yule log, and talk of the birth of the Son of man. Suddenly the village bells toll for midnight. The sun appears upon the horizon and leaps three times for joy; the birds throughout the forest break forth into singing; every fir-tree blossoms into fairest flower and fruitage, and is clothed once more in soft leaves, in place of the sharp, spearpointed needles into which they were condemned to shrink when a fir-tree was used for the Saviour’s cross. All the good people of the village are praying; and hark! the cattle, upon their knees in the stable, are talking together in low tones. “A child is bo-or-rn!” lows the cow. “True-e-e,” returns the ass. “Where, where, where?” calls the shrill voice of the cock—and the lambs answer, “In Be-e-t-t-’lem!” The horses alone have nothing to say, and While these strange things are happening in the stables of the little German village, the gnomes are busy in the mountains, throwing out gold and precious treasures of the earth where men shall find them the coming year. When Christmas morning dawns, which in the northern countries is not before nine or ten in the forenoon, the first loaves that come smoking from the housewife’s oven are given to the cattle. In Sweden it is the custom to tie a sheaf of grain to a pole and set it up where the birds may alight and take part in the joy and good cheer of the day. Before long the village beggars are knocking at the door, and the humblest peasant, remembering that it is the day on which God gave his only-begotten Son to the world, dispenses with a free hand his gifts to all that come. Evergreen, and, in particular, the fir-tree, has been from the earliest times associated with Christmas, and countless tales and legends are perfumed with its spicy odors. Many are the German songs that are full of its praises. “O northern fir, O northern fir, In thee my heart delighteth, How oft thy boughs at Christmastide Have shed their blessings far and wide;— In thee my heart delighteth.” Hans Christian Andersen, whose happiest hours were those spent in writing pure and sweet fairytales for children, has told the story of the fir-tree in his own gentle way. Here is one more child-song, freely translated from Cassel’s notes: Within the wood a fir-tree stands, So stately to be seen; In summer, spring and winter, too, Its cloak is ever green. Its tiny needles, fine and sharp— Some pointing up, some down— The thistle-finch doth take, to sew Her pretty yellow gown. Through snow and ice the Christ-child sends The good old Santa Klaus, Who straightway hews the fir-tree down And bears it to the house. With loving hand, the Christ-child hangs The nuts and apples there; A taper small upon each twig, And cakes and dainties rare. Then comes the blessed Christmas night, The bell is rung—and lo! There stands the fir-tree, green and still, Its branches all aglow. Thou fir-tree in the forest dark, Soon shalt thou hence be borne. Rejoice! for then thy branches, too, The Christ-child shall adorn. In Scandinavia two fir boughs are nailed crosswise before the door on Christmas day. Children go about the village, knocking at the windows with fir twigs, and receiving gifts of sugar plums. The Alsatian peasantry relate that the apostle to the people on the Rhine and Moselle was the son of the widow of Nain. Long after his miraculous resurrection he was sent westward by Saint Peter. One day he came to the steep banks of the Rhine, and, stopping to rest, fell asleep from weariness, in the shade of a fir-tree. On awaking, he found that his pilgrim’s staff had grown into the trunk of the fir, and thus plainly indicated that he had reached the appointed end of his journey. In England, the same veneration seems to have been bestowed, time out of mind, upon the holly. Its glossy, pointed leaves symbolize the crown of thorns, and the berries the crimson blood-drops that gathered upon the Saviour’s brow. Like the fir, it is ever green and full of life—as the love of Christ to mankind. Indeed this almost instinctive association of green boughs and all bright, growing things with the joy and beauty of religious life, extends throughout written history. The Israelites in the desert were taught (if they had not already adopted a custom which was thus merely confirmed and sanctified) to “take the boughs of goodly trees, So, too, the wreaths of green leaves attributed to the Greek and Roman deities, and awarded to those who seemed most godlike, in peace or war. When Christ entered Jerusalem, the fittest expressions of the joy, the thanksgiving and the reverent worship of the multitude were the palm branches, strewn in the path of him who was victorious over Evil, and who—not conquered death, but showed him to be only the angel of Life, with the shadowy side of his face turned towards us, as he comes between us and the Everlasting Light. In the early days of England the Druids were accustomed to go forth at Christmas and gather the sacred mistletoe; while even the poor and humbler folk brought evergreen and hung it up in their cottages, that the gentle spirits of the forest might dwell there in safety till the sun should shine again. In these modern days it has become the fashion to use evergreens more and more generously. The two largest of the Boston markets are surrounded, for a week preceding Christmas day, with a spicy forest of spruce and fir-trees, while the sidewalks are half hidden beneath great fragrant heaps of “princess pine” and “creeping Jenny,” in the form of wreaths, crosses and trimming. Holly, too, is used in larger quantities every year, and altogether the times seem Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still. Each age has deemed the new-born year The fittest time for festal cheer. And well our Christian sires of old Loved when the year its course had rolled, And brought blithe Christmas back again, With all its hospitable train. Domestic and religious rite Gave honor to the holy night; On Christmas eve the bells were rung; On Christmas eve the mass was sung; That only night in all the year, Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear. The damsel donned her kirtle sheen; The hall was dressed with holly green; Forth to the wood did merry men go, To gather in the mistletoe. Then opened wide the baron’s hall To vassal, tenant, serf, and all; Power laid his rod of rule aside, And ceremony doffed his pride; All hailed with uncontrolled delight And general voice the happy night That to the cottage, as the crown, Brought tidings of salvation down. England was merry England, when Old Christmas brought his sports again. ’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale; ’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale; A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man’s heart through half the year. Of all the supernatural visitors who roused old Scrooge from his slumbers in Dickens’ immortal “Carol,” by far the most interesting was the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Past is a memory; the Future a dream; the Present is ours. With its ghost—or its spirit, to free ourselves from uncanny associations with the name—we are intimately associated: it is the key-note, or rather the theme, which determines the harmony or discord of the year. What, then, is the spirit of our own Christmas Present? what the underlying motive and thought, the impulse that turns our population out of their comfortable homes in the snowy streets during the most inclement month of our New England year, and then as universally gathers each family circle within doors on that one supreme Day of days? which decks counter, wall, window, and altar with evergreen, type of Eternal Life; which loosens the purse-strings of rich and poor; which brings the name of Christ tenderly to the lips of young and old? With all this we have much to do. Here it is, the spirit of Christmas, analyzable or not, for good or for evil. There is much outcry nowadays against the extravagant mysticism which pervades the observance of the day. Christmas cards have run wild with grotesque fancies. Christmas games, legends, stories, plays,—even the columns of the daily press are full of them. At this season, the compositor may keep standing the words “Christmas,” “Bethlehem,” “Christ,” so often are they called into service. There is the mysticism, the revival of the ancient myth and folk-belief; and there is the rush of “the trade” for the pecuniary advantages of the public tender-heartedness. One man gazes at the Star until he stumbles in the highway: his neighbor stands at the gates of Bethlehem on Christmas morning and takes toll. These are the extremes, never more marked, more obtrusive, than in this year of our Lord 1898. But between the two, hurrying over the fields toward the city by the light of the Star, and thronging through the gates toward the little manger throne, are the vast numbers of honest, earnest, sincere men and women who find at Christmastide their perplexed lives made clear, their hopes brightened, their burdens lightened, their strength renewed for the twelvemonth to come. To the mysticism, the love for glorified myth and legend, that characterizes the Spirit of Christmas Present, they find an answering chord in their own hearts, which will not be satisfied with shallow interpretations of the day; which demands something deeper, and cannot rest content with the broken clause, “On earth peace, good will toward men,” but must echo the wonderful song that rang out over the dark hill-slopes of JudÆa, “Glory to God in the highest.” As we gather about the cradle of every wee human child, born by such wondrous miracle, so on each Christmas Eve the world gathers at the rude manger where its Baby is laid, gazing into the gentle, radiant “Mysticism,”—life is clothed in mystery! The birth of the poorest, meanest child, in the shabbiest attic of your street of ill repute, is a mystery far too sacred for man to divine. How shall we smile at those who find in Christmas the consummate Mystery, the holiest miracle that the weary, wondering earth has known? The holiest, the deepest, and yet the simplest! For Christmas Day is pre-eminently a day for entering the kingdom as a child. The door of the stable is low; and we must stoop as we enter hand in hand with little folk,—so sweet, so humble, so dear to everyday, plain home-living is this Christian season of merrymaking. The august features of the wise astrologers of the East relax, as they turn from the Star to the face of the Child. The tax-gatherer forgets his calling, and at last joins the throng of Christmas joy-makers and joy-receivers, who find kindly impersonation in “Santa Claus.” Let the card-dealers, then, and the writers of pretty fancies—the students of folk-lore, the devotees of mystic rite—have their way; let the tradesman prosper in the time of gift-giving; and every toiler in the wide business field reap his golden harvest or glean his few sheaves, as he may. We will not cast out from the Spirit of Christmas Present its solemnity, its prosperity, its simple and innocent gayety. There is no danger at present that Christmas Extremes of enthusiasm will ripen into earnest living. It is narrowness and coldness, the mere humanitarian spirit of good morals, the sneer at Christmas sentiment, that are to be dreaded. It is the spirit of “Christmas all the year round” that is to be prayed for. |
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