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We learn, from history, that there was, among our an cestors, from the earliest ages, a festival celebrated about the time of the anniversary of the commencement of the Christian era. It is well known, that, the Anglo-Saxons began their year at the Winter Solstice, because then ‘the sun turned, and the days began to lengthen ; and that they did--at ‘this time kéep the festival” of Geol. or Yule (as Christmas is‘still “called among our northern. neighbours), in honour of ‘the. sun. . The month of January was deno minated. after. Geohol,” as was that of December “* be fore’ Geohot.” It is not’ little remarkable, that the Yule should have ‘been a festival; the rites and ceremonies of which took ‘place in the night time (called “ Mother Night,”) thus according with the present observance of Christmas Eve; though the nightly part of the festival is considered by Christians as an allusion to the watching of the Shepherds by night at the birth of Christ. ‘This was a fit opportunity for our ances tors to testify their joy and gratitude for the blessings conferred on them by the genial influence of the great’ lu minary...and for invoking a continuance of the same in each revolving year’ It is likely that as the prejudices imbibed through their former Pagan worship, were the chief obstacles to the introduction of Christianity (for the Anglo-Saxons in general were not unwilling converts), this festival might be, and probably was, made the occasion of impressing open the minds of the people,the events recorded in the Gospel, by the first missionaries to this country from the pious Gregory, about the year 596:in that way imper ceptibly: softening the repugnances always attendant upon a change in long-cherished customs, and the introduction of a new system of religious belief. Lay Maria Beauclerk, eldest daughter of the Duke of St. Alban’s, we are concerned to hear, is much indisposed at his Grace’s house, in St.James’s square. Viscountess Cremorne will give her annual bounty, this day, ‘to thirty poor Irish chairmen, to each 4lb. of beef, one bushel of ‘coals, three shillings, and.one glass of whisky; besides, supplying ‘a ‘number of families“ with clothes and food in the’ neighbourhood of Chelsea farm. Sieur Rousseau, the responsible Editor of the Constitu tionnery, died in the prison of Criminal Justice at Dijon, where he was confined in pursuance of the sentence of the Royal Court of that town.
Newspaper Details
British Press
London, Middlesex, GB
Thu, Dec 25, 1823
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Lisa J.
