So we find a day hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ, in far-off India, similar to Christmas in all its special and peculiar features.

In China, also, the same thing is true. On that day shops and courts were closed, business was suspended, and it was a general holiday.

In Persia, from time immemorial, the people celebrated the virgin birth of their God Mithras on the 25th of December in very much the same way. In Egypt, they celebrated the birth of the god Horus, who was born of the virgin Isis; and it is a little peculiar and worth noting that, as a part of the service of that day, an image of the young god, very much like the bambino which is exposed to the public in Rome to-day, was shown then. It was a doll-like image of the god Horus, just as the bambino is an image of Jesus. This made part of the public service of the ancient Egyptians.

In Greece, Hercules, the great sun god, was born on this day; and the time was celebrated by the Grecians. In Rome, Bacchus, the "Saviour," was shown to the people as an infant, similar to that of the bambino shown as the image of Jesus at the present time. It was a twofold festival in Rome. You will find it common in the history of religions that a popular festival should be adopted and the meaning of it changed. The festival would have become so fixed in the popular love that religious teachers should find it difficult to displace it; and therefore they adopted it, changing the meaning so as to associate it with the new religion. This had gone on before Christianity in Rome. The 25th of December was celebrated in two ways. It was, first, the birthday of their sun god, the invincible god Sol; and at the same time they celebrated the Saturnalia, in memory of the supposed far-off time when Saturn, as a fatherly god, lived in Italy and ruled over the people. That was their golden age, when there was no war, no unkindness, before sin and evil and trouble had come into the world. So we find the Romans from time immemorial celebrating their

Saturnalia and the festival of their sun god at this time of the year.

Then we come to Adonis, an Oriental god whose worship extended to the west. Tertullian, and Jerome, two Church Fathers about the second century, tell us that, in celebrating the birth of Adonis, the ceremonies took place in a cave in Bethlehem, in the same cave where tradition afterwards said that Jesus himself was born. For you must remember that there was a tradition in the early days of Christianity which said that the birthplace of Jesus was not in a caravansary or an inn, but in a cave, which was long pointed out to admiring pilgrims.

Another curious fact in the Roman celebration is worth noting. One of the most delightful parts of the Christmas celebration in Germany and in some other parts of Europe is that the children early in the morning come from all parts of the country and march through the streets, singing Christmas carols; and everybody is expected to give a present to them, some gift in token of the good will to which the day is dedicated. From time immemorial in Rome the Calabrian shepherds were accustomed to come into Rome and parade the streets, blowing on pipes their carols, expecting persons to give gifts to them, just as they do to the singing children in Germany to-day.

Among the ancient Germans, before Christianity was introduced, they also celebrated the yule feast with jovial hospitality, decorating their houses with branches of trees.

In those countries where the people were accustomed to decorate their houses with branches, the ancient people had worshipped deities who were supposed to reside in the forest; and they, in their naïve method of reasoning, argued that, if they brought the woods to the homes, turned the homes into a mimic forest, the sylvan gods would follow and make their abode with them, and bring the peculiar blessings that their presence was supposed to confer. Here is the origin of the decorating of our houses still with evergreen.

The Druids in Britain and Ireland celebrated the day by

building huge fires on the hill-tops and decorating their dwellings with mistletoe. In ancient Mexico, before this country was discovered by Columbus, the day was celebrated with a meaning similar to that with which we celebrate Christmas to-day.

It is interesting to note that Tertullian started the cry against Christmas, which found such an echo in our forefathers' day. About A.D. 200 he inveighed against this fashion of decorating the houses of Christians after the manner of the heathen, saying it was rank idolatry to do it. see we have his testimony as to the origin of the custom. His feeling was much like the feeling of our Puritan forefathers, that we would better omit it.

Among the ancient Hebrews they had their Christmas, too, only the day is called Chanuccah, a festival which was prolonged for several days. And I want to remind you of the naïve significance of one feature of their celebration. On the first day they lighted one candle in the house, on the second day they lighted two, on the third day they lighted three, and so on up to the eighth, when eight candles were burning. Perhaps you will catch a hint of the meaning of that.

Saint Chrysostom, about the year A.D. 390, says, "On this day [the 25th of December] the birth of Christ was lately fixed in Rome, in order that whilst the heathen were busy with their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed."

You may then see that the lightest word I speak concerning the matter has for its basis the scholarly consent of all the world. Under every sky, then, in almost every nation, in almost every religion with which we are acquainted, curiously enough, we find the celebration of a day very much like our Christmas,—like it in some features or suggesting resemblances, and at the same time of the year. What does it

mean?

That is the next point; and that will be the answer to the question as to the origin of the day. Being so universal, we

must find a universal cause; and that universal cause is not far to seek. There has been a period in the history of every people on earth, no matter how far behind them it may be to-day, when they were worshippers of the heavenly bodies, or the mysterious deities supposed to be connected with them; and our Christmas Day reaches back to that far-off, prehistoric age, back to the time when the sun was deified, was a god, and when, as opposed to him, the darkness and the cold were also deified.

But we must try, in order to comprehend this, to project ourselves for a little out of these comfortable days, when with gas, electric lights, furnaces, steam heat, and all possible appliances we turn night into day and the winter into summer in our cosey and sheltered homes, into the past, into the cold and the dark of the winters of our progenitors. The moment the sun went down they were obliged to seek some shelter where they could lie covered and safe from wild beasts and every form of danger during the long night. And we must remember that it was we know not how long before they even invented fire, before they had any artificial light or heat. In that day, if you can picture it imaginatively, you can easily see how they might, in their mythical stories of the doings of the natural forces of the world, deify these natural forces and picture a battle year-long and yearly renewed between the darkness and the light, between the sun god and the demons of the darkness and the cold. After the summer had passed by, it seemed to them that their deity was gradually losing strength in this battle, being driven by that hostile force further and further south, until the time came of the shortest day and darkest night of the year, the time of the winter solstice, when the sun seemed shorn of his beams and the light of its gladness, when the enemies of light and warmth seemed supreme.

And on that night the sun god is born. The new year begins; and the invincible hero, as they call him, starts on his northward march, driving off the blasting winds and the cold and the winter before him, and bringing the promise of May

and June, of flowers and grasses, and all the light and jollity and beauty and glory of the summer.

As a part of this old nature worship, in celebration of the birthday of the sun, we find the universal origin of this great festival that has taken such general hold on the heart, the thought, the love, and the life of the race. So we find the reason that this has spread all over the world, and is not confined to any particular nation or any particular religion.

And, when Jesus was born, what? Why, as I have told you, the disciples believed he was to return in the clouds of heaven and establish a new kingdom; and nobody ever seemed to think there was any reason for caring about the date of his human birth. At any rate, there was no record made of it. It was a matter of no importance. And when after a time he did not reappear, and they began to question when he was born, nobody knew, and there was no possible way of settling the day. Yet the hearts, the loving, worshipful hearts of Christendom wished to celebrate by appropriate ceremonies the birthday of the founder of their religion. So some day must be fixed on. But why did they choose. this? Rome was the seat and centre of Christendom; and this festival of the Saturnalia, the day on which the birth of the sun was celebrated, was the most popular of all the year. It was fixed in the popular heart, the popular love, so that the Church Fathers found it was impossible to dislodge it ; and they said, While they are celebrating the birthday of the natural sun, why should not we celebrate the birthday of the sun of righteousness, the birthday of him who is the true light of every man that cometh into the world? And so, by a course of reasoning like that, at last the twenty-fifth day of December was fixed upon as the most convenient and most fitting day to celebrate the mass in honor of the birth of Jesus, the Christ mass, as it came to be called.

Here, then, is the origin, here is a hint of the nature, and now a word as to the meaning of Christmas. Do you not see this meaning? Does it not gladden your heart to know that a universal festival like this should have at its core sub