446 
RURAL HOURS. 
But as if expressly to decide the question, we find in the 
prophet Hosea the word mirth directly applied to religious festi- 
vals. When rebuking the idolatry of the Jews, and proclaiming 
the punishments which should in consequence fall upon them, the 
prophet, speaking in the name of the Almighty, declares that the 
land shall be deprived of her festivals : 
" I will also cause all her mirth to cease ; her feast-days, her 
new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts." 
Here we have the very word in dispute applied to the great 
religious festivals of the Jewish Church. The learned theologians 
who translated the Hebrew Scriptures, held it a fitting term in 
connection with festivals of divine appointment, and coming from 
the lips of an inspired prophet ; those holy days are spoken of as 
a blessing, as the mirth of the land, which the idolatrous tribes 
no longer deserved, and of which they were to be temporarily de- 
prived, as a punishment for their sins. After this passage, it were 
worse than idle to cherish scruples against using the word in the 
same sense ourselves. Let us, then, with every return of the 
festival, gladly and heartily wish our neighbor, all fellow-Chris- 
tians, the whole broad world, a right " Merry Christmas." 
It is, in good sooth. Merry Christmas ! . The day is bright with 
blessings ; all its hours are beaming with good and kindly feelings, 
with true and holy joys. Probably a fuller, purer incense of 
prayer and praise ascends from earth to Heaven, upon this great 
festival, than at other periods of the year. Thousands and ten 
thousands of knees are bowed in adoration, from the remotest 
coasts of heathen Asia, to the farthest isles of the sea ; thousands 
and ten thousands of voices are raised among the rejoicmg na- 
tions, repeating the subhme hymn first heard upon the hallowed 
