ll it is
kindled anew by the relighting of the blaze on the hearth a year
hence. Here in New England we come, little by little, back to
these kindly old customs that mean so much when the outward
observance is informed with the thought which it represents. The
old fireplaces which were once ignominiously built up with bricks
to give free draft to the air-tight stove in its hollow
materialism are being reopened, and in them again we light our
Yule fires. Nor is the spirit banished with the season. The blaze
from the burning log on the open hearth is the kindliest welcome
that a room can give to him who enters it. In it the rough rind of
our puritanism burns away and the glow within shines forth as we
sit about this primal altar of our race, fire-worshipping.

It was the olden custom for host and guests to watch the first
burning of this ashen fagot, and as the hazel withes one by one
burned away the severing of the bond was the signal for the
passing of the flagon, the loosing of the genial hospitality pent
within the breasts of all and set free with the flames. Perhaps
many who took part in these rollicking ceremonials thought they
cared merely for the cakes and ale, but even they were self
deceived. It was the genial freeing of the spirit of Christmas
good-will to all, the fellowship that touched deepest, though they
may not have formulated the fact even in their thoughts. No wonder
that the children, whose clear sight is unblurred by too much
learning of things which are not so, knew that to this fond fire
on Christmas eve must come that patron saint of gifts, Santa
Claus, even though, the house being locked, he must climb down the
wide chimney to reach it. We have forgotten the shoe, which in the
folk tales of our earliest forbears of the North European forests
was the symbol of mutually helpful deeds of love. The children of
these days placed it by the Yule fire, that Santa Claus might load
it with gifts. Nowadays we hang the stocking in its stead, perhaps
because it holds more.

*****

I do not take it kindly of old Ben Franklin that he, almost an
hundred years ago, with his Poor Richard wisdom taught us to
economize our fuel by shutting up our fire in stoves, for what we
gained in the flesh we lost in the spirit, and it is good that in
the modern house, however mechanically complicated the heating
apparatus, we build fireplaces once again that our souls may be
warmed with the sight of the flame. The impulse