he King of
Glory in the stable at midwinter has presented itself in concrete form to
the popular mind, calling up a host of human emotions, a crowd of quaint
and beautiful fancies. Lastly we have noted the survival, in the most
varied degrees of transformation, of things which are alien to
Christianity and in some cases seem to go back to very primitive stages
of thought and feeling. An antique reverence for the plant-world may lie,
as we have seen, beneath the familiar institution of the Christmas-tree,
some sort of animal-worship may be at the bottom of the |358|
beast-masks common at winter festivals, survivals of sacrifice may linger
in Christmas feasting, and in the family gatherings round the hearth may
be preserved a dim memory of ancient domestic rites.

Christmas, indeed, regarded in all its aspects, is a microcosm of
European religion. It reflects almost every phase of thought and feeling
from crude magic and superstition to the speculative mysticism of
Eckhart, from mere delight in physical indulgence to the exquisite
spirituality and tenderness of St. Francis. Ascetic and _bon-vivant_,
mystic and materialist, learned and simple, noble and peasant, all have
found something in it of which to lay hold. It is a river into which have
flowed tributaries from every side, from Oriental religion, from Greek
and Roman civilization, from Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, and probably
pre-Aryan, society, mingling their waters so that it is often hard to
discover the far-away springs.

We have seen how the Reformation broke up the great mediaeval synthesis
of paganism and Christianity, how the extremer forms of Protestantism
aimed at completely destroying Christmas, and how the general tendency of
modern civilization, with its scientific spirit, its popular education,
its railways, its concentration of the people in great cities, has been
to root out traditional beliefs and customs both Christian and pagan, so
that if we would seek for relics of the old things we must go to the
regions of Europe that are least industrially and intellectually
"advanced." Yet amongst the most sceptical and "enlightened" of moderns
there is generally a large residuum of tradition. "Emotionally," it has
been said, "we are hundreds of thousands of years old; rationally we are
embryos"{1}; and many people who deem themselves "emancipated" are
willing for once in the year to plunge into the stream of tradition,
merge themselves in inherited social custo