THE SCOTSMAN'S CHRISTMAS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 189, 30 December 1912, Page 3

THE SCOTSMAN'S CHRISTMAS.

There is one part of the. Empire where the celebration of Christmas was long regarded with disfavor by the church authorities. Throughout' the Middle Ages and down to the period of the Reformation, the festival of Christmas, grafted on the pagan rites of Yule, was an occasion for rejoicing throughout Christendom. After the changes of the sixteenth century the Lutheran and Anglican churches retained this celebration, but the Calvinists rejected it absolutely, denouncing the observance of all festival days as superstitious and nnscriptural. An early writer has told in an amusing way of the efforts of the Calvinist clergy to break down the old tradition in Scotland that it was wrong to work on Christmas Day. "Tho ministers of Scotland," he says, "in contempt of the other holie dayes as observit in England, cause their wyfes and servants to spin in. oppin sicht of the people on Yeul ■Day; and their affectionate auditeurs contraines their tenants to yok their pleuehs on Yeul Day in contempt' of Christ's Nativitie. whilk our Lord has not left unpunisit, for their oxin ran mad and brake their nekis and lamit sum pleuchmen. as is notoriously knawn in sindrie partes of Scotland." As late as half a century ago the celebration of Christmas was comparatively unknown in the Lowlands of Scotland, although in many parts of the Highlands and in the county of Forfar the English custom had a _ secure footing. "The tendency to mirth and' jollity at the close of the year, which seems almost inherent in human nature," wrote a chronicler of the time, "lias, in North Britain, been for the most part transferred from Christmas to New Year's Day, and the preceding evening, known by the appelation of Hogmenay." But the Scotsmen man aged to atone for, the neglect of the great Christian festival by a -generous display of jollity and kindliness on their own holiday.