We have learnt to speak of time, because it is that portion of eternity with which we have presently to do,—as if it were a whit more intelligible (less vague, abstract, and unimaginable) than that eternity of which it is a part. He who can conceive of the one, must be able to embrace the awful image of the other. We think of time as of a section of eternity, separated and intrenched by absolute limits; and thus we seem to have arrived at a definite idea, surrounded by points on which the mind c

This Book of Christmas is a sound and good persuasion for gentlemen, and all wealthy men, to keep a good Christmas. Any man or woman . . . that can give any knowledge, or tell any tidings, of an old, old, very old gray-bearded gentleman, called Christmas, who was wont to be a verie familiar ghest, and visite all sorts of people both pore and rich, and used to appeare in glittering gold, silk, and silver, in the Court, and in all shapes in the Theater in Whitehall, and had ringing, feasts, and jo

But though these causes are offered as accounting for the preservation of many customs which, without them, would long since have passed into oblivion, which exist by virtue of the position they occupy on the calendar, yet the more conspicuous celebrations of this season need no such aid and no such arguments. Nothing can be added to their intrinsic interest, and they are too closely connected with the solemn warnings of man's temporal destiny, and linked with the story of his eternal hopes, eve

We will not dwell here on the domestic operations which are so familiar to all,—the ample provision for good cheer, which has long been making in every man's home who can at any time afford to make good cheer at all. We need not remind our town readers of the increased activity visible in all the interior departments of each establishment, and the apparent extent and complication of its foreign relations; the councils held with the housekeeper and cook; the despatches to the butcher, baker, poul

Amongst these ancient customs may be mentioned the practice of "going a gooding," which exists in some parts of Kent, and is performed by women, who present sprigs of evergreens and Christmas flowers, and beg for money in return. We believe the term "going a gooding" scarcely requires illustration. It means, simply, going about to wish "good even,"—as, according to Nares, fully appears from this passage in Romeo and Juliet:— In this same county, St. Thomas's Day is likewise known by the name of

Before however, touching upon the customs and ceremonies of the night, or upon those natural superstitions which have hung themselves around its sacred watches, we must take a glimpse at an out-of-door scene which forms a curious enough feature of Christmas Eve, and is rather connected with the great festival of to-morrow than with the hushed and expectant feelings which are the fitting moral condition of to-night. Everywhere throughout the British isles Christmas Eve is marked by an increased a

From the religious duties of the day, we must turn at once to its secular observances; and these we will take in the order, with reference to the progress of its hours, in which they come, mingling the customs of modern times with those of the past in our pages, as, in many respects, we wish our readers would do in practice. The plate then on the other side represents the earliest, and not the least important, of the worldly ceremonies of the day, the due observance thereof being essential to th

We have already mentioned that the custom of bestowing gifts at seasons of joyous commemoration, has been a form of thankfulness at most periods; and that it may have been directly borrowed, by the Christian worshippers, from the polytheists of Rome, along with those other modes of celebration which descended to the Christmas festival from that source,—introduced, however, amongst our own observances, under Scripture sanctions, drawn both from the old and new Testaments. The particular form of t

The day and eve which precede the New Year are marked, in England, by few outward observances, save such as are common to the season; and it is in the peculiar trains of thought to which they give rise that they have a character of their own. In Scotland, on the other hand, the festival of this season is, since the Reformation, nearly limited to these two days; and the last day of the year is distinguished both by omens and by customs peculiar to itself. In Mr. Stewart's "Popular Superstitions o

Of this day we have little left to say; almost all that belongs to it having been of necessity anticipated in the progress of those remarks which have brought us up to it. It is a day of universal congratulation; and one on which, so far as we may judge from external signs, a general expansion of the heart takes place. Even they who have no hearts to open, or hearts which are not opened by such ordinary occasions, adopt the phraseology of those whom all genial hints call into sympathy with their

The more we examine the Saturnalia of the Romans and compare those revels with the proceedings of our Twelfth-night, the more satisfied do we feel of the correctness of Selden's view. "Christmas," he says, in his "Table Talk," "succeeds the Saturnalia; the same time, the same number of holy-days. Then the master waited upon the servants, like the Lord of Misrule." There is here a general likeness to the season of which we treat; but, as Mr. Brand further states, the Greeks and Romans at this per

It is not, as we have said, to be expected that after the full chorus of increased mirth which hath swelled up anew for the last of these celebrations, the ear should all at once accustom itself to a sudden and utter silence,—should endure the abrupt absence of all festival sound; nor can all the laughing spirits of the season who were engaged in added numbers for the revelries of last night, be got quietly laid at rest in the course of a single day. One or other of them is accordingly found lur