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CHRISTIANSTADT 



CHRISTMAS 



Christianstadt, the chief town of the Danish 

 island of St Croix (q.v.), in the West Indies, on 

 the north shore. Pop. 5500. 



Christiansund (63 10' N. lat., T 50' E. 

 long.), sometimes confounded with Christiansand 

 though 350 miles farther north, is a Norwegian 

 coast-town (pop. 10,500), built on three wooded 

 islands, Kirkelandso, Inlandso, and Nordlandso. 

 The main thoroughfare being the sea-channels be- 

 tween these islands gives it a curiously picturesque 

 character, which is heightened by the irregularity 

 of ground on which the wooden houses are built, 

 scarcely any two being on the same level. It has 

 a considerable trade with Spain and Italy in salt- 

 fish, and is a calling-place for the omnibus passenger 

 steamers which now ply so numerously on the 

 Norwegian coast. The chief public buildings are 

 the grammar-school and custom-house. 



Christina, queen of Spain. See MARIA 

 CHRISTINA. 



Christina, queen of Sweden, only child of the 

 great Gustavus Adolphus, was born 17th Decem- 

 ber 1626, and succeeded her father in 1632, when 

 only six years old. Distinguished equally by 

 beauty and the possession of a lively imagination, 

 a good memory, and uncommon intelligence, she 

 received a man s rather than a woman's education, 

 and to this may partly be attributed the many 

 eccentricities of her life. During her minority 

 the kingdom was governed by the five highest 

 officers of state, the principal being Chancellor 

 Oxenstiern. In 1644 she assumed the reins of 

 power, and in 1650 was crowned with the title of 

 king. She had previously declared her cousin, 

 Charles Gustavus, her successor. For four years 

 thereafter she ruled the kingdom with vigour, and 

 was remarkable for her patronage of learned men, 

 such as Grotius, Salmasius, and Descartes. In 

 1654, however, at the age of twenty-eight, weary 

 of the personal restraint which royalty imposed on 

 her, she abdicated in favour of her cousin, reserv- 

 ing to herself sufficient revenues, entire independ- 

 ence, and supreme authority over her suite and 

 household. Leaving Sweden, she proceeded to 

 Brussels, where she embraced the Roman Catholic 

 religion. She next went to Rome, which she 

 entered on horseback, in the costume of an 

 Amazon, with great pomp. Confirmed by Pope 

 Alexander VII., she adopted the surname of Ales- 

 sandra. She next visited Paris ; and there in 1657 

 she caused her grand equerry, Monaldeschi, who 

 had enjoyed her entire confidence, to be executed 

 in her own household for treason. The death of 

 the king in 1660 caused her to hasten from Rome 

 to Sweden ; but, failing in her attempt to be re- 

 instated on the throne, she again left the country. 

 In 1666 she aspired to the crown of Poland. The 

 remainder of her life was spent at Rome in artistic 

 and scientific pursuits. Here she died April 19, 

 1689. See a monograph by F. W. Bain (1889). 



Christison, SIR ROBERT, D.C.L., physician 

 and toxicologist, son of the professor of Humanity 

 in the university of Edinburgh ( 1806-20), was born 

 at Edinburgh, July 18, 1797. After graduating in 

 1819, he proceeded to London and Paris, and 

 in the French capital studied toxicology under 

 the celebrated Orfila. He was in 1822 appointed 

 professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the uni- 

 versity of Edinburgh ; and in 1832 was pro- 

 moted to the chair of Materia Medica, which 

 he occupied till 1877, when he retired. He 

 became famous as a medical writer, and risked 

 his life more than once in his experiments with 

 poisons on his own system. He was appointed 

 physician-in-ordinary to the Queen in 1848 ; pre- 

 sident of the Edinburgh Royal Society ( 1868-73) ; 

 and created a baronet in 1871 ; and was honoured 



with a banquet and the degree of LL.D. in 1872 on 

 the completion of his fiftieth year as a professor. 

 During a vigorous old age he could walk, run, or 

 climb mountains better than any of his contem- 

 poraries. He died 23d January 1882. Besides con- 

 tributing papers on various subjects to medical 

 journals, Christison wrote a Treatise on Poisons 

 (1829), recognised as a standard work on the sub- 

 ject; Biographical Sketch of Edward Turner, M.D. 

 (1837) ; a treatise On Granular Degeneration of the 

 Kidneys ( 1839) ; and The Dispensatory, a Commen- 

 tary on the Pharmacopoeias of Great Britain (1842). 

 See his Life, edited by his sons ( 1885-86). 



Christmas, the day on which the nativity of 

 the Saviour is observed. The institution of this 

 festival is attributed by the spurious Decretals to 

 Telesphorus, who flourished in the reign of Anton- 

 inus Pius (138-161 A.D. ), but the first certain 

 traces of it are found about the time of the Emperor 

 Commodus (180-192 A.D.). In the reign of Pio- 

 cletian (284-305 A.D. ), while that ruler was keep- 

 ing court at Nicomedia, he learned that a multitude 

 of Christians were assembled in the city to cele- 

 brate the birthday of Jesus, and having ordered 

 the church doors to be closed, he set fire to the 

 building, and all the worshippers perished in the 

 flames. It does not appear, however, that there 

 was any uniformity in the period of observing the 

 nativity among the early churches ; some held the 

 festival in the month of May or April, others in 

 January, conjointly with the feast of the Epiphany. 

 It is nevertheless almost certain that the 25th of 

 December cannot be the nativity of the Saviour, 

 for it is then the height of the rainy season in 

 Judaea, and shepherds could hardly be watching 

 their flocks by night in the plains. 



Christmas not only became the parent of many 

 later festivals, such as those of the Virgin, but 

 especially from the 5th to the 8th century, gathered 

 round it, as it were, several other festivals, partly 

 old and partly new, so that what may be termed a. 

 Christmas Cycle sprang up, which surpassed all 

 other groups of Christian holidays in the manifold 

 richness of its festal usages, and furthered, more 

 than any other, the completion of the orderly and 

 systematic distribution of church festivals over the 

 whole year. Not casually or arbitrarily was the 

 festival of the Nativity celebrated on the 25th of 

 December. One of the principal causes that co- 

 operated in fixing this period was that almost all 

 the heathen nations regarded the winter solstice as 

 the turning-point of the year the beginning of the 

 renewed life and activity of the powers of nature, 

 and of the gods, who were originally merely the 

 symbolical personifications of these. In more 

 northerly countries this fact must have made itself 

 peculiarly palpable hence the Celts and Germans, 

 from the oldest times, celebrated the season with 

 the greatest festivities. At the winter solstice the 

 Norsemen held their great Yule-feast (see YULE) in 

 commemoration of the fiery sun-wheel ; and be- 

 lieved that during the twelve nights from the 25th 

 December to the 6th January they could trace the 

 personal movements and interferences on earth of 

 their great deities, Odin, Berchta, &c. Many of 

 the beliefs and usages of the old Germans, and 

 also of the Romans, relating to this period, passed 

 over from heathenism to Christianity, and have 

 partly survived to the present day. But the church 

 also sought to combat and banish and it was to a 

 large extent successful the deep-rooted heathen 

 feeling by adding, for the purification of the 

 heathen customs and feasts which it retained, its 

 grandly devised liturgy, besides dramatic represen- 

 tations of the birth of Christ, and the first events 

 of his life. Hence sprang the so-called ' Manger- 

 songs,' and a multitude of Christmas carols (see 

 CAROL), as well as Christmas dramas, which at 



