THE GIFTS OF THE MAGI

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 249, 13 December 1940, Page 6

THE GIFTS OF THE MAGI

SEASON OP REJOICING.

Most of us at this time of the year are divided impartially between things Celestial and things Terrestial, and we run the whole gamut of hum art emotions, from Adeste Fidelis to roast turkey; turning, with enthusiasm, on Boxing Day, to •pi~l(ain bread and butter. Still, there's another aspect to this season of rejoicing; The soulsearching problem of giving, and as the great Day approaches, there comes the devasting feeling that perhaps we've decided on the wrong gift .after all.

But everyone assures us you can't go wrong with scent. Perhaps not! It certainly has stood the test of time. Ea,u de-Cologne for instance. Some say it was originated by Johann Maria Farina and Johann Bapt.iste Farina, who, coming from Italy, opened a fancy goods business in Cologne,- about 1709; others again insist that. Paul de Feniinis came from Milan- to Cologne in 1690, passed the formula on to his nephew until in 1806, one, Jean Antoine Farina, produced it in Paris. Of course, there are some carping critics who say_ William Shakespeare didn't write these plays, but another fellow of the same. name. Be that as it may, the plays and the scent, have triumphed over scepticism, and in the case of the latter a fragrance of magic and romance alings with a persistence Time cannot banish. Spices! We close our eyes to the welter of the city, and our ears to the screech of the pneumatic drill, and see again the Magi bringing the first Christmas gifts of the world. Melchoir, the Nubians with his royal offering of gold; Balthasar, the Chaldean, with his frankincense/ the symbol of royalty; Gaspar, the Ethiopian, tallest of them all, with his gift v of myrth, which signifies. . . . But long before the Wise Men . saw the Star in the East, spices were, compounded to make

perfume. Early in Exodus, fo r instance, we find a recipe which comprises: "Stacte —the essence of myrrhonchya, and galbanum, mixed together with pure frankincense/' the whole, presumably, a desirable scent. While in a papyrus., 2000 years 8.C., is the account' of a mixture of "Fine oil, myrrh, eye pa,int, and the tails of giraffes." This latter ingredient, Ave feel, requires the understanding heart of a higher critic! Again, Pliny flings his quota into the bubbling cauldron of knowledge, and tells us that the Phoenicans and Egyptians carried on a flourishing trade in frankincense, adding the fact that none but the Sabines knew the tree which produced the precious spice—and only 3000 of these being privileged by virtue of hereditary succession, to prune it! ...