CHRISTMAS AND ITS FESTIVITIES. 



" On Chrismas 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 kertle sheen j 

 The hall was dressed with holly green." 



Marmeon, 



All hail to thee ! dear old Christmas Eve of our youth, 

 with thy sweet, uuforgotten memories, the long-looked 

 for messe cle minuit, with its flaming tapers, green 

 arches and its grave, inspiring church music, "Without 

 omitting the exciting homeward drive, over whitened 

 streets and moon-lit snow, the sumptuous midnight 

 repast — le rdveillon de Noel — and all the expected 

 gifts of the morrow ! All hail to thee ! 



Other climes may rejoice in other, grander ways of 

 solemnizing thy glories, but nowhere does your yearly 

 advent gladden more hearts than in our Canadian 

 land. And still to the student, you do come, as a 

 mysterious masquerader, veiled under a strange guise, 

 clad partially in raiment borrowed from a distant, very 

 distant and misty era. 



Our modern Christmas customs are interwoven with 

 pagan rites and ceremonies ; there can be no doubt on 

 this point. 



" By such an amalgamation," says the ' Book of 

 Days,' " no festival of the Christian year was more 

 thoroughly characterized than Christmas ; the festivi- 

 ties of which originally derived from the Eoman saturn- 

 alia had afterwards been intermingled with the cere- 

 monies observed by the British Druids at the period of 

 the winter-solstice, and at a subsequent period became 

 incorporated with the grim mythology of the ancient 



