Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Puritans and Christmas by Mary Alice Ives Seymour - 1858


The Puritans and Christmas by Mrs. Mary Alice Ives Seymour - 1858

Back a long time ago the Puritans in New England, put people in the stocks for observing Christinas Day?

Not only placed them in the stocks, but subjected them to a fine, for they declared they were dishonoring God and offending their fellow-man. This law was repealed in 1682, not through any love of Christmas, but through fear of the loss of their charter. One reason why the Puritans in this country encouraged family gathering and festivities upon Thanksgiving Day was, that they hoped to make it supersede Christmas. They brought their hatred to holy days from the old country. In England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Puritans, under their champion Prynne, began to denounce the Christmas-tide pageantries, yet they continued to flourish with increasing splendor until the reign of bloody Mary; they were then prohibited in London in order to reduce the corporation expenditure. But during the civil war, those fanatical Puritans had full power to persecute all keepers of Christmas. They declared that the observance of the day came from pagan customs, and that it was idolatrous. In the year 1647, those who decked churches at Christmas, and had them opened for divine service, were subject to heavy fines, and in the same year, the observance of that festival and other holidays was formally abolished; the shops ordered to be opened, and a market appointed on Christmas Day. In Canterbury this was the cause of an insurrection. The people refused to bring their wares to market, and they compelled a few shop-keepers, who had opened their shops, to close them again.

In Scotland, where Puritan principles took a more rigorous hold on the minds of the people, an act was passed by the parliament as early as Mary's reign, forbidding all 'merrie disports.' For this there may have been some excuse, as under cover of mumming disguise, many irregularities were committed which were justly open to censure. Neal tells us, in his History of the Puritans, 'that Christmas had not been publicly observed in Scotland since the sixteenth century to his day, except during the short reign of the Bishops.' At the establishment of the Commonwealth, an order of parliament, in 1652, again forbade the observance of Christmas Day. Forbid as much as he would, the regicide Cromwell could not shut out the happy Christmas feeling from the hearts of the Church's children. Many were the Houses wherein the festival was secretly celebrated; but it was a sad enjoyment after all, for the old people thought of the joyous time when the royal Stuarts sat upon the English throne, and the younger parents trembled, lest the brutal Roundheads should discover their innocent mirth, and bear them from their little ones, away to some lonely prison.

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