at
Strasburg and hang thereon roses cut out of many-coloured paper, apples,
wafers, gold-foil, sweets, &c."{3}

We next meet with the tree in a hostile allusion by a distinguished
Strasburg theologian, Dr. Johann Konrad Dannhauer, Professor and Preacher
at the Cathedral. In his book, "The Milk of the Catechism," published
about the middle of the seventeenth century, he speaks of "the
Christmas- or fir-tree, which people set up in their houses, hang with
dolls and sweets, and afterwards shake and deflower." "Whence comes the
custom," he says, "I know not; it is child's play.... Far better were it
to point the children to the spiritual cedar-tree, Jesus Christ."{4}

In neither of these references is there any mention of candles--the
|266| most fascinating feature of the modern tree. These appear,
however, in a Latin work on Christmas presents by Karl Gottfried Kissling
of the University of Wittenberg, written in 1737. He tells how a certain
country lady of his acquaintance set up a little tree for each of her
sons and daughters, lit candles on or around the trees, laid out presents
beneath them, and called her children one by one into the room to take
the trees and gifts intended for them.{5}

With the advance of the eighteenth-century notices of the
_Weihnachtsbaum_ become more frequent: Jung Stilling, Goethe, Schiller,
and others mention it, and about the end of the century its use seems to
have been fairly general in Germany.{6} In many places, however, it was
not common till well on in the eighteen hundreds: it was a Protestant
rather than a Catholic institution, and it made its way but slowly in
regions where the older faith was held.{7} Well-to-do townspeople
welcomed it first, and the peasantry were slow to adopt it. In Old
Bavaria, for instance, in 1855 it was quite unknown in country places,
and even to-day it is not very common there, except in the towns.{8} "It
is more in vogue on the whole," wrote Dr. Tille in 1893, "in the
Protestant north than in the Catholic south,"{9} but its popularity was
rapidly growing at that time.

A common substitute for the Christmas-tree in Saxony during the
nineteenth century, and one still found in country places, was the
so-called "pyramid," a wooden erection adorned with many-coloured paper
and with lights. These pyramids were very popular among the smaller
_bourgeoisie_ and artisans, and were kept from one Christmas to
another.{10} In Berlin, too, the pyramid was once ver