England was, as far as we can judge, a boisterous and not very refined festival, with huge "Stonehenge masses" of meat on the tables, and far too copious libations of beer and wine. The Italian proverb "Ho has more business than English ovens at Christmas" contains a reminiscence of the good cheer that the dwellers in the island of rain and fog were popularly supposed, by' the inhabitants of more genial clicrntes, to "partake of. Hobby horses, Lovds of Misrule, Yule logs, and all the fantastic paraphernalia of the mediceve! Chriatmas have long ago passed away, and are remembered only by a transient record here and there in the anti+ quarian's dusty volumes. Our nine teenth contuty Christmas is a strange mixture of genuine jollity and old world affectation, It is never easy to be happy "to order", and if we are really anxious, or out of health, or in depressed spirits, we cannot throw all our worries aside and assume cheerfulness because it is a particular day in December. Still, the sight of happy children is pleasant, and the effort required to interest ourselves in other people's welfare does us all good, and contributes to keep the special vexation that is disturbing us out of our minds, by substituting livelier tenants for those black cares which have been our familiar guests through the previous weeks. The name of Chrictmas, though nob perhaps so potent as it once was, ie atill enough to conjure away many of the minor annoyances that fret our common life.
OF course the view which one takes of the festival differs at various times of one's life. It is popularly supposed that everyone at this particular season disregards practical and common sense restrictions, and affects the inconsiderate gaiety of childhood and infancy. The Saturnalia comes: round and childish games, childish story-books, childish appetites are supposed to be the order of the day. Fortunately or unfortunately very few of us con go back to the season of childhood without a cor-tain disarrangement of ourselves; and therefore many residents in China tacitly make the best of " season which is found practically to have weplessant drawbacks, and either seek comfort and change in up-codutry trips, or excuse themselves from convivial parties and spend Christmas Day like any other day. It is doubtful, however, whether this is a wise policy. The feast is, after all, one of the links between our foreign life and our Home life, and it may not be very wise to sunder or to miss even the smallest of the ties which bold the "stranger in a strange land" to the mother country. And though it may require an effort for a man sith confirmed habits to break through his rales, and to go to the social or the children's party, he will 2ct Ica by the effort. His sympathica "wil be widened, and his capacity for enjoyment
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.