ANCIENT FESTIVALS AND MODERN HOLIDAYS-SUNDAY, LENT, EASTER, EASTER EGGS, CARNIVALS, MAY DAY, WHIT-MONDAY, MIDSUMMER DAY, LAMMAS MONDAY, ULETIDE, LADY DAY, PALM SUNDAY, THE PURIFICA

TION.

EVERY festival of the Christian Church, apart from saints' days, was originally a Pagan festival. SUNDAY, the first day of the week, was the festival of the sun-god, Dies Solis Venerabilis of the Romans, as the other days of the week were festivals of the moon and five planets. In the fourth century of the Christian era the Imperial murderer Constantine made an attempt to enforce rest from all work on this day, as the ancient Akkadians did on the seventh day, by an Imperial edict. But this interference with the people's holiday and their liberty and freedom on that day was not popular, and the edict was repealed by the Emperor Leo in the ninth century. The Puritans in the sixteenth century again tried to restrict the liberty of the people on that day by asserting that the Jewish Sabbath was obligatory upon Christians, but that it might he kept on the first instead of the seventh day of the week, and, in fact, on any seventh day, for which they had not a shadow of authority.*

EASTER Commemorates the vernal equinox, when the sun crosses the equator, and the days become longer than the nights, and daily increase in length; also the return of verdure, and the bursting forth of the seed. It is, by arrangement, the first Sunday after the full moon, which happens upon, or next after, March 21st; and if the moon is at full on a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after. "6 Easter," or Eastre," was the name of the Dawn goddess

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* The subject of a Sabbath has been dealt with by the author in his Sunday, the People's Holiday.

of the Vedic Aryans-Aditi, the mother of the sun, the same with the Hindu Devaki (the virgin mother of the Saviour Krishna), the Saxon Ostrit, and the Teutonic Eostre. Her festival was the festival of the vernal equinox, the commencement of the solar new year, the first month of which (April) was dedicated to her. It came originally from the East, as the name suggests, long before the Christian Messiah was born or thought of. In China it was called "the festival of Gratitude to Tien." From the East it spread over the whole of Pagan Europe; the name "Easter" being retained by our Teutonic forefathers instead of adopting the Greek and Roman "Pascha." The festival was a seasonal one, and denoted the death and departure of winter and the renewal of life in spring; the Teutonic word for which was lens, from which the Christian LENT is derived, but which is now applied to the forty days preceding Easter. As the egg was the symbol of birth, it became the symbol of Easter and Spring, in connection with sun worship, representing the triumphant sun. Eggs were sacred Easter offerings among the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians, who presented each other with coloured eggs; and also among the Jews (who used eggs at the Passover) and the Chinese. A form for "blessing " Easter eggs is found in the ritual of Pope Paul V. The Feast of the Passover had its origin in the fact that in the East the firstling of the flock, a lamb, was sacrificed, and its blood sprinkled over the gates of the folds and the entrance to the tents, in order that the evil spirit might pass over. The festival was preceded by a forty days' fast, broken by a week's indulgence in all kinds of sports before taking farewell to animal food, called the carne, vale (to flesh farewell), from which the modern word "carnival" is derived. The early Christians did not celebrate the resurrection of their Messiah, but made the Jewish Passover their chief, and, in fact, only, festival; and there is no mention of Easter in the N. T., but there is a misrendering of the Greek word pascha in Acts xii. 4, which ought to be rendered "the Passover," but is wrongly rendered "Easter." A new tradition, however, gained currency among the Roman Christians, that Jesus had not eaten the Passover before he died, but had substituted himself for the "paschal lamb "; the resurrection then became

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a great Christian festival. But there were bloody feuds in the Church respecting the celebration of the new festival. "The old party, taking their time from the moon, and regarding it as a symbol of renewal, held that, as a substitution for the Passover, Easter was a lunar celebration falling on the 14th day of the first moon. The later and victorious party, who adopted the solar reckoning, maintained that it must ever be held on the day of our Lord the Sun......The adjustment of the date sufficiently indicates the astronomical character of the feast." "* It must be near the spring equinox, when the sun crosses, or passes over, the equator, after a full moon and on the day sacred to the sun, the Pagan Dies Solis-i.e., on the first Sunday after the Passover. We thus see that the Christian compromise had no reference to alleged historical facts, but to reconcilement of various views of nature-worship. If Easter had celebrated the death and resurrection of a real person, it would be held at a fixed, and not at a moveable, date.

MAYDAY Commemorates nature's profusion of flowers and blossom, which has from early times found expression in dance and song, and which instinctively excites feelings of gladness and delight. In Rome the goddess Flora was specially venerated at this season, which custom has its modern representation in "the May Queen."

WHIT-MONDAY.-The Monday after Pentecost, which is seven weeks after Easter. So called from the white garments worn by the newly-baptized Catechumens in the Christian Church, which rite took place on the vigil of Pentecost. The holiday has outlived the religious association out of which it originated. Pentecost was a Jewish feast, held on the fiftieth day after the Passover, in celebration of their "Ingathering," and in thanksgiving for their harvest. The Christian Church adopted it from the Jews, and celebrated the supposed descent of the "Holy Ghost," one of the gods of their Trinity, on the Jessæan apostles.

MIDSUMMER DAY (June 24th) commemorates the event of the sun having attained his highest point in the heavens, and our northern hemisphere being under the influence of the greatest effulgence of his rays.

LAMMAS MONDAY, or HARVEST FESTIVAL, is the first

* J. M. Wheeler, Footsteps of the Past.

Monday after "Lammas Day" (August 1st), and is kept as a holiday or "festival of the ingathering." It derives its name of Lammas from a superstitious offering in early times of the first fruits of the harvest to the various deities.

ULETIDE is the Christmas of Christians, Noel of the French, and Yule of the Teutonic (or ancient Germans). Yule and Noel are derived from the Hebrew Chaldee Nule = revolution of the year. It is the ancient birthday of the sun-the god Sol; Uletide being the period when the sun is at the winter solstice after declining to its lowest point in the heavens. It is also the birthday of all the messiahs of the various religious systems of the world. The Romans kept it as the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti-the birthday of Sol the Invincible. It is supposed to have been instituted as a festival by the ancient Persians many centuries before the Christian Messiah appeared, being the birthday of their sun-god Mithra-the "invincible one"-who overthrew and vanquished death. Malachi in the O. T. says in reference to this: "Upon you, fearful ones, the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings" (iv. 2).

Buddha, the son of the Virgin Queen Maya, on whom, according to Chinese tradition, the Divine Power, or Holy Ghost, had descended, was said to have been born on this day. The ancient Egyptians kept this day as the birthday of their sun-gods. Isis, their Queen of Heaven and Virgin Mother, was delivered on this day of a son and saviour, Horus. His birth was one of the greatest mysteries of their religion. Pictures of it decorated the walls of their temples; images of the virgin and child, and effigies of the son lying in a manger, were common. At Christmas the image of Horus was brought out of the sanctuary with great ceremony, as the image of the Infant Bambino, or black child, is still brought out and exhibited in Rome. Among the Greeks the births of Hercules, Bacchus, and Adonis were celebrated on this day. In Rome the festival of the "unconquered sun" was held as a Saturnalia," whence comes the idea and expression-" Lord of Misrule." A few days before the winter solstice the Calabrian shepherds came into Rome to play on the pipes. Here we see the origin of the modern "waits." On this festival the gods were consulted as to the future, sacrifices were offered to them, and jovial festivities took place. The Roman Christians pitched upon

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this day as the birthday of their Messiah, because the real day of his birth was unknown, the 25th of December being the day when nearly all the nations of the earth celebrated the accouchement of the various "Queens of Heaven" and "Celestial Virgins." But not only did the Christians steal a birthday for their Messiah, but they perpetuated the Pagan custom of decking their houses with evergreens and mistletoe, for which Tertullian remonstrated with them, accusing them of idolatry. Evergreens and mistletoe were Dionysiac plants-i.e., symbolic of the generative power-perpetuity and vigour. The Puritans, seeing that the festival was a relic of Paganism, did their best during the "Long Parliament to suppress it, but the "Restoration" put a stop to further action.

The following three festivals are religious festivals only and are not public holidays :

LADY DAY (March 25th) is the modern representative of the ancient Roman festival of Cybele-the "Virgin Queen of Heaven," the "Mother Goddess" (from which the Old English "Mothering Sunday" or Midlent Sunday came). The "Galli" sung by the Catholic priests of Rome in honour of the Christian Virgin is identical with the ancient "Galliambus" that was sung by the Pagan priests of Rome in honour of Cybele.

PALM SUNDAY originally commemorated the triumph of the sun over the shadows of winter. It was adopted by Christians to commemorate the strewing of branches before Jesus when he is said to have performed his impossible riding feat on an ass and its colt into Jerusalem. It was called by the gipsy tribes "the day of shadows."

THE PURIFICATION of the Virgin originated with the worship of the Egyptian goddess Neith (= starry sky), the virgin mother of the sun-god Ra. The worship of this goddess was accompanied by a profusion of burning candles. Her feast was called "the Feast of the Purification."