Yule-Tide in Many Lands | Page 8

dancing
light We tell old tales of field and fight At Christmas time.
At Christmas time we pile the board With flesh and fruit and vintage
stored, And mid the laughter and the glow We tred a measure soft and
slow, And kiss beneath the mistletoe At Christmas time.
O God and Father of us all, List to Thy lowliest creature's call: Give of
Thy joy to high and low, Comforting the sorrowing in their woe; Make
wars to cease and love to grow At Christmas time.
Let not one heart be sad to-day; May every child be glad and gay: Bless
Thou Thy children great and small, In lowly hut or castle hall, And
may each soul keep festival At Christmas time.
THE NEW YEAR
"A good New Year, with many blessings in it!" Once more go forth the

kindly wish and word. A good New Year! and may we all begin it With
hearts by noble thought and purpose stirred.
The Old Year's over, with its joy and sadness; The path before us is
untried and dim; But let us take it with the step of gladness, For God is
there, and we can trust in Him.
What of the buried hopes that lie behind us! Their graves may yet grow
flowers, so let them rest. To-day is ours, and it must find us Prepared to
hope afresh and do our best.
God knows what finite wisdom only guesses; Not here from our dim
eyes the mist will roll. What we call failures, He may deem successes
Who sees in broken parts the perfect whole.
And if we miss some dear familiar faces, Passed on before us to the
Home above, Even while we count, through tears, their vacant places,
He heals our sorrows with His balm of Love.
No human lot is free from cares and crosses, Each passing year will
bring both shine and shower; Yet, though on troubled seas life's vessel
tosses, The storms of earth endure but for an hour.
And should the river of our happy laughter Flow 'neath a sky no cloud
yet overcasts, We will not fear the shadows coming after, But make the
most of sunshine while it lasts.
A good New Year! Oh, let us all begin it With cheerful faces turning to
the light! A good New Year, which will have blessings in it If we but
persevere and do aright.
--E. Matheson.
CHAPTER III.
[Illustration]
YULE-TIDE IN GERMANY

"Feed the wood and have a joyful minute, For the seeds of earthly suns
are in it."
--Goethe.
It was away back in the time of Alexander the Great that Germany was
made known to the civilized world by an adventurous sailor named
Pytheas, a man of more than ordinary talent, who was sailing
northward and discovered a land inhabited by a then unknown people.
He reported his discovery to the Romans, but the difficulty was that
Pytheas had seen so much more than any of the Greeks or Romans of
those days that they utterly refused to believe his statements. Time has
proved that the sailor was nearer right in many of his apparently
visionary statements than his countrymen dreamed, although it has
taken centuries to prove the fact in some cases.
The people whom Pytheas then introduced to the polite world were
Teutons, a branch of the great Aryan race and closely related to the
early English. The men were simple, truthful, and brave, but were sadly
addicted to drink, it was said, and consequently were often quarrelsome.
The women were much like those of to-day in their characteristics:
virtuous, proud, and dignified; very beautiful, with golden-hued hair,
blue eyes, and fresh, fair complexions. Like most of the early peoples,
the Teutons worshiped gods and goddesses, and so have many customs
and traditions in common with other branches of the Aryans.
If England has enjoyed the merriest Yule-tides of the past, certainly
Germany enjoys the merriest of the present, for in no other country is
the day so fully and heartily observed. It is the great occasion of the
year and means much to the people.
For a week or more before the day, loads of evergreen trees of all sizes
may be seen coming into the cities and towns to be piled up in squares
and open places until the entire place looks like a forest of small firs.
One wonders where they all come from and for how many years the
supply will last, but it is not likely to fail at present.
The Lutherans gave Martin Luther the credit of introducing the

Christmas tree into Germany. He may have helped to make it popular,
but certainly there is abundant evidence to prove that it was known
long before the Reformer's time. It is generally supposed to have