THE ORIGIN OF HOLIDAYS. 521 



cycle by a ceremonial and emotional race was a most natural 

 progress of their enlarging life. At the middle of the tenth cent- 

 ury B. c, there were^, besides the annual feasts of unleavened 

 bread, harvest, and ingatherings, those of the new moon and the 

 Sabbath ; and these latter still retained their primitive character- 

 istics of joyful days of rest and assembly. In fact, owing to the 

 popular reluctance to class religious days, and particularly the 

 ancient Sabbath, as holidays, "' we can not refrain," with Deutsch, 

 " from entering a protest against the vulgar notion of the Jewish 

 Sabbath as being a thing of grim austerity. It was precisely the 

 contrary — a day of joy and delight, a feast-day, honored by fine 

 garments, by the best of cheer, by wine, lights, spice, and other 

 joys of pre-eminently bodily import." So here the same objection 

 should be met which was anticipated in the case of funeral cere- 

 monies and festivals. All primitive religious ceremonies and 

 days, whether they be in connection with ghost, fetich, or Nature 

 worship, are of this spontaneous emotional character which is the 

 essence of holidays. It is doubtless true that, when in the course 

 of the development of a religion the spontaneity lessens, and with 

 more expressionless feeling and calm thought the religious life of 

 a people crystallizes into mechanical forms and creeds, then au- 

 sterity and asceticism have dried up the holiday heart in church- 

 days ; but when the reaction comes, and the Church in fear and 

 horror calls us to defend her acquired prerogative, we are assured, 

 by such an inquiry into the origin of her days, that either the 

 creeds and commandments must be periodically modified to the 

 needs of human nature, or that mankind will find more radical 

 vents for its spontaneity. The founder of Christianity saw the 

 necessity in his day for the rebuke that " the Sabbath was made 

 for man and not man for the Sabbath." We to-day see that man 

 has made his own Sabbath ; being his own, he must not and can 

 not be kept from his heritage. 



This suggests the question, How has the direction of holidays 

 come to be taken from the hands of the particix)ants ? The an- 

 swer is obviously found in the course of differentiation and spe- 

 cialization which holidays have undergone. The domestic festi- 

 vals, which included only relatives and friends, were at first purely 

 spontaneous with each individual or circle. As the ceremonies 

 became more elaborate and i^rolonged, the father, eldest son, 

 medicine-man, or chief became director, until with further elabora- 

 tion into fixed and regular forms of emotional expression, there 

 arose the beginnings of a specialized class of priesthood. When 

 they had obtained full control, there arose the phenomenon, 

 remarkable in that it continues to our own day, of the priesthood's 

 trying to formulate the reasons for the ceremonies and existence 

 of church-days, and these efforts taking on the shape of creeds 



