"new year's gifts I would advise your parishioners not to "trouble your conscience with them, and all will be well "again."

We now proceed to notice some of the customs practised during the Roman Saturnalia, from which it will be apparent that our ancient customs, in common with our reformed modern ones, proceed from the same polluted source. At this feast slaves were not merely put by their masters on an equality with themselves, but their masters occasionally waited upon them, honouring them with mock titles, and permitting them to assume their own state and deportment. Even this practice was transferred to our Christmas ceremonies; thus the society belonging to Lincoln's Inn had anciently an officer who was honoured with the mock title of "King of "Christmas," because he presided in the hall upon that day: this temporary potentate had a marshall and a steward to attend upon him. Upon Childermas day they had another officer, denominated the "King of the Cockneys." The "King of the Bean," too, was chosen upon the vigil of the Epiphany; and at the court of Edward III. the king's title was conferred, during this festive season, upon his majesty's trumpeter-an exchange, perhaps, that kings might often make with advantage-at least to their subjects; all these transpositions at Christmas being derived, according to Selden, "from the ancient Saturnalia, or feast of Saturn." These fooleries were exceedingly popular, being practised in defiance, at first, we are told, of the threatnings and remonstrances of some of the clergy; but this accommodating class of men, finding it desirable to follow the stream of vulgar prejudice, eventually satisfied themselves with changing merely the titles of their religious ceremonies, so that the same unhallowed orgies which had disgraced the worship of a heathen deity were now dedicated to the service of the true God, and sanctioned by the appellation of Christian rites. From this stock branched out a variety of unseemly and immoral sports, but none of them more outrageous to common sense than the one entitled the "FESTIVAL OF "FOOLS," which, at the festive seasons, formed a part of divine service;" when rites and ceremonies, pretending to be of the most sacred character, were turned into ridicule, the priests themselves supporting their true character by participating in such degrading exhibitions. In each of the cathedral churches there was elected, at such periods, a

bishop, or archbishop of fools;" (would we could give both them and their clerical successors no worse a character)

66

and in the churches immediately dependant upon the papal See, a pope of fools." These mock pontiffs had also a suit of ecclesiastics to attend upon, and assist at, what they impiously called "divine service;" and, attired in the dresses. of players and buffoons, as was the custom in the heathen solemnities, they were accompanied by crowds of the laity, some disguised with masks, and others dressed as females, in which garb they imitated the manners and the behaviour of the lowest and most abandoned classes of society.

"

After

During such "divine service," this motley group both of clergy and laity being assembled in church, some of them sang indecent songs in the choir; others ate; others drank; others played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest whilst celebrating mass. such " solemnities" they ran about the church, leaping, dancing, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes, as the practice had been in honour of the heathen deities. Another part of the ceremony, in remembrance of the Nativity of our Lord," but which had been practised under another designation before "our Lord" was born, was to shave the "precentor of fools" precentor of fools" upon a stage appropriately erected before the church door; and during the operation his office was to amuse the populace with lewd and vulgar discourses. The "pope of fools" performed "divine service," habited (not inappropriately) in the pontifical garments; and, thus attired, gave his benediction to the people. He was afterwards drawn in an open carriage, attended by a train of ecclesiastics and laymen, promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed (quite correctly in our judgment) clerical habits, in order, says Strutt, to give "their impious fooleries "the greater effect." In the fourteenth century, in England, at this season, we had the king of fools; and the election and investment of the "boy bishop" was clearly derived from the festival of fools-but of these more hereafter: the whole affords a singularly effective comment on the Rev. Doctor's "Vindication of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ," and well displays "the wisdom and piety of the ancient "Christians in working by contraries, to convert the heathen "from superstition, and vindicate such times, by appointing "them to the solemn service of God." But if the " wisdom "and piety" of these parties failed in their experiments upon the human species, it would appear that they were more successful with the brute creation. Let the following statement from "Brand's Popular Antiquities”

66

66

66

satisfy the most sceptical: "A superstitious notion prevails " in the Western parts of Devonshire, that at twelve o'clock at night, on Christmas eve, the oxen in their stalls are always found on their knees, as in an attitude of devotion; "and that" (which is still more singular)" since the altera"tion of the style they continue to do this, only on the eve of old Christmas day. An honest countryman living "on the edge of St. Stephen's Down, in Cornwall, informed mẹ, October 28, 1790, that he once, with some others, "made a trial of the above; and watching several oxen in "their stalls, at twelve o'clock at night, they observed the "two oldest oxen only fall upon their knees," (they were of the high church party we presume*)" and make a cruel moan like Christian creatures!!" There is an old print of the nativity, in which the oxen in the stable, near Jesus and his mother, are actually represented on their knees, and in a suppliant posture!!!

66

We shall be told that many of the monstrous scenes of depravity, or of folly, which we have related, belonged to times that are long gone by; that they were perversions of institutions in themselves good; and that now a "reasonable "service" supplies the place of our ancient pastimes. We admit that, in their grosser characteristics, the time is gone by for the toleration of such impurities; and doubtless the progress of enlightenment would have entirely dissipated them, had not a religious character been forced upon them. But the religion which adopted them is unchanged; the articles which claimed the right to "decree rites and ceremonies" are still in force; the belief in such is still "a part and parcel "of the law of the land;" the denunciations against those who would expose them, possess even more than their ancient ferocity, and the iniquity of calling such institutions, with such an original, "Christian," is still continued. But we deny that even the grossest practices recorded, were, in any sense of the word, a "perversion" of the original institution of those days; it has been shewn that their institution was not almost but altogether-of heathen original, and that they were not esteemed Christian until kings and priests made them so, and impiously dared to fix them on more enlightened times by giving them a character of piety and

* A friend, who has seen our manuscript, suggests, as more probable, that the younger animals, less regardful of ancient customs, sagaciously observed the new stile; a point of ecclesiastical chronology which has divided other if not wiser heads than those of the calves now in question.

66

66

holiness. We are told, in defiance of history and of fact, even by BRADY, in his "Clavis Calendaria," "That the "festivals of the Christian church" (that is, not the church of Christ, but that church which is "part and parcel of the law of the land") were instituted for the most amiable purposes, to keep up a steady and regular succession of "religious observances." And one of the highest church authorities upon these subjects informs us that the way to keep those 216 holy days of the English church, is by setting them apart for the exercise of religious duties, and by abstaining from worldly recreations, as such might hinder our attendance upon the worship of God. Yet a protestant king, James I. no less a personage than the "Defender of "the Faith," and the legal head of this same church, at a period not long preceding the authority last quoted "did justly" (to use his own words) " rebuke some puritans and precise people, who had punished our good people in Lancashire for using their lawful recreations "and honest exercises on Sundays, and other holy days, "after the afternoon sermon; it is our will that, after divine "service, our good people be not disturbed from any lawful "recreation, such as dancing, either for men or women; " archery for men; leaping; vaulting; nor for having maypoles; nor Whitsun ales; nor morris dancers and other 66 sports, so AS THE SAME BE HAD WITHOUT NEGLECT OF 66 DIVINE SERVICE."

66

An exposure of the ignorance, or the folly, of the established church is, however, only incidental; our main object being to prove, as far as such observances can do so, that nearly the whole of the religious bodies of this, and all other "Christian countries," are Heathen-not Christian establishments; a point which we think may be effectually established by a review and a fair application of the facts above recorded, or adverted to;-for what is it which we see? In the first place we find certain feasts, celebrated with certain observances in honour of heathen deities; thence we follow them to the Roman Catholic Missal, and there find the heathen institutions, sanctioned almost without disguise; from this we proceed to the "Book of Common Prayer, and "Administration of the Sacrament and other Rites and "Ceremonies, according to the use of the Church of England;" and there we are presented with the Roman Catholic Calendar, the number of the saints certainly rather lessened; but those that remain, having their lessons, collects, &c. unaltered unreformed; thence we

“

descend to the Methodists, and find them commanded by Mr. Wesley, to observe the ceremonies of the church of England, even down to that of making every Friday in the year a fast day; and we finally trace these heathenish observances in the Unitarian "Book of Common Prayer, the "seventh edition, with additional collects-1823," being the liturgy, which" is an exact copy of that now used at the chapel, in Essex Street;" in this we discover " The order for morning prayer every Lord's day throughout the year; "the same to be used with the proper collects upon Christmas "Day, Good Friday, Easter Day, and Whitsunday." Upon Christmas day we are presented with a collect addressed to God, "for the first coming' of our Lord Jesus Christ;" upon Good Friday with one which speaks of Jesus as "this day

66

66

wishing to be given up into the hands of wicked men; and upon Easter Sunday with one for "our Lord Jesus Christ," "who had overcome death;" although, in regard to Christmas day, the editor of this very book of reformed Common Prayer has himself put upon record, that, apart from the consideration of the heathen original of the festival, it is, in its religious character, founded upon a gross fabrication-that of the two first chapters of Matthew and Luke; and in relation to Easter, we shall shew, in our succeeding number, that it has not even the credit of being a perverted Jewish feast, but is simply a modernized heathen festival, originally kept in honour of Eastre, a Saxon goddess, and afterwards transferred to the Catholic Missal; yet a minister of the Unitarian body can be actually engaged, in common with the Roman catholic priest, thus in imposing upon society, and aiding to degrade a religion which came from the Most High God, and such unholy exertions, we lament to record, would appear to be but too successful; for in the preface to the seventh edition of Mr. Belsham's "reformed" service, is an announcement that "it was published with the design of inducing other congregations to adopt the same, WHICH PURPOSE HAS "SUCCEEDED."

66

دو

For the present we take our leave of this subject expressing our firm reliance upon the good providence of God; that Christianity simple, pure, and dignified, as it was taught by Jesus and his apostles-will rise from the corruptions which past and ignorant ages have heaped upon it, and which are yet unhappily preserved by the prejudices of the vulgar, and the false views of expediency exhibited by those who lay claim to superior enlightenment!