Classic Christmas Stories (2 page)

The indignant wife informed her husband of what had happened. “You see, my
dear, ” he calmly remarked, “it was all a mistake; he took you for Mary. You
were out of your proper sphere.” But her anger knew no bounds and she insisted
on the instant dismissal of the schoolmaster. In a most unenviable state of mind
she went to church; but as the touching service proceeded, and the choir broke
into “Hark! The herald angels sing, ” she began to feel a soothing influence
calming her mind; other and better thoughts arose, and when the Parson closed
his sermon with an earnest entreaty to his hearers to banish all angry passions
and forgive all injuries, and to seek reconciliation with friends and neighbours
where quarrels had arisen, and not to let this sweet day close till this was
done, the Parson’s wife was fairly overcome. Perhaps too the passionate warmth
of those kisses that were showered her, albeit intended for another, had some
influence, reminding her of a time, some twenty-five years ago, when her
Theophilus came a wooing. She began to think of the misery of the unhappy lovers
whom she was about to separate, perhaps for ever. As the Rev. Theophilus emerged
from the vestry after service, his wife placed her hand on his arm, and said,
“let us go and call on Mary.” Speedily all was forgiven; and on New Year’s Day,
Mary and Melchisedek were married, to the great delight of the entire population
of Punch Bowl.

When Melchisedek ventures to find fault with his wife about any trifle, the old
flash from her mischievous black eyes comes back as she sings, “the Schoolmaster
kissed the Parson’s wife—heigho.”

by Canon Smith, R. D.

M
ANY CHILDREN READ WITH delight
Christmas Bells
,
therefore this article is intended principally for their entertainment. Being a
clergyman, I suppose I am expected to speak principally of the Church services
and Church decorations at Christmas of the period named in the heading of this
article. In 1854 I was a child living at Trinity, of which place my father was
Incumbent. He was also Rural Dean of both Trinity and Bonavista Bays. Mine is
the first instance in the history of the Church of England in this Diocese of a
father and son both having held the office of Rural Dean.

On Christmas Eve great effort was made by housewives and kitchen maids to be
the first in the town or settlement to have the kitchen and parlor, and indeed
the whole house, thoroughly “tidied up” for Christmas. Work at this began in
every house long before daylight on December 24th, —for before that tidying had
been accomplished the Christmas “back junk” or Yule-log could not be placed in
position on the shining “dog-irons, ” and the great Christmas fire lit. The
placing of this “back junk” was proclaimed by the discharge of a sealing gun.
Result, Christmas Eve was heralded in by a heavy fusillade of musketry. I regret
to say that in the Church of England in the outports at that time no Church
services were held on Christmas Eve, though we had them in full the next day.
No, sad to say, not the sound of Christmas carol or
of hymn of
praise was heard on Christmas Eve, but rather the shout of revellers and not
infrequently the sounds of blasphemy and strife. At 9 a.m. on Christmas Day the
sound of the Church going bell was heard pealing o’er hill and dale, notifying
the congregation of old St. Paul’s that there would be service on that day
at 11 a.m. Old St. Paul’s at Trinity had a square tower, with a flat roof,
surrounded by a wooden parapet. In the upper chamber of this tower was the bell;
on the roof a high flagstaff—in order that people living at too great a distance
from the Church to hear the bell might yet have notice of the service; half an
hour before service commenced a flag was hoisted on the flagstaff. There were
two flags, one a plain red St. George’s Cross on a white ground; this was for
ordinary occasions. On the greater festivals a larger flag, also a St. George,
but with the ensign in the upper corner, was hoisted.

On Candlemas Day—Festival of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin—being the
day when the Trinity Benefit Club walked in procession to Church, the Club flag
was hoisted on the Church staff; this was a very pretty flag, having the English
Rose in red colour, the Irish Shamrock in green, and the Scotch Thistle in both
red and green embroidered on it on a white ground. This is, I believe, still the
flag of the Trinity Benefit Club. This Club was formed as far back as 1838 by
the late William Kelson, Esq. It is one of the oldest benefit Clubs in
Newfoundland. The entrance fee and the annual subscription thereto, is two
dollars with twenty cents to be paid on the death of a brother by each of his
surviving brethren. The weekly allowance, in case of sickness, paid to a member
in good standing was two dollars. In the event of his death his widow and
relations received forty dollars to pay the expense of his burial, etc. for
those times, when the wages of a day labourer was only fifty cents a day, and
for a tradesman eighty cents, this Club allowance was considered to be, as
indeed it was, liberal.

On Good Fridays a flag was hoisted on the Church tower, of a deep purple color.
This was testimony of the awful Sacrificial Death which that holy-day
commemorates. This flag had been first hoisted by the Rev. William Bullock
and 1825. Mr. Bullock, before his ordination at the bombardment of Algiers by
the British fleet under Lord Exmouth in 1816. I have heard that it was customary
a hundred years ago for the King’s ships to hoist a flag of this color in a
prominent part of the ship’s
rigging while Divine Service was
being held on board on Good Friday morning. It is more than forty-five years
since this flag was last hoisted at Trinity. The old flag given by Mr. Bullock
became worn out. It was never replaced, which I think a pity.

To hark back to my story. At 9: 30 a.m., the children assembled in the C. C. C.
S. School, where solely religious instruction was given as on Sunday. We said
our Collect and Gospel, and the oldest of us the Epistle too, and were
questioned on the Catechism. There were no Christmas prizes, and Christmas cards
were not invented. Yet we were happy, and the
Sunday
School (if I may so
call it) was always thronged with the children on Christmas morning, and all the
teachers were sure to be present. Just fancy children now-a-days being required
to go to school on Christmas morning. Why, if we attempted to enforce such
discipline, I fear we should meet with little long faces—longer than the longest
Santa Claus stocking. At 10: 45 we were all mustered, 200 strong, under our
teachers, and marched in procession to Church.

Now, the art of Church decoration had not made much progress in Newfoundland
outports in 1854. In most of them no attempt whatever was made at Christmas
decorations. Not so in Trinity. On Christmas Eve a large quantity of boughs
(principally of pine but with spruce and fir intermingled, also some palm) were
brought to the Church by the old sexton and his family. Then armed with a gimlet
the old man proceeded, according to the prophets’ teaching, to bring into the
house of God for its adornment, the pine tree and the fir. The modus operandi
was to make a hole with the gimlet in the top of the long high pews, the pulpit
and the reading desk, together with the communion rails, and to “dibble” into
the said holes sprigs of pine and fir, etc. The result was, the Church presented
to view a mass of greenery. This decoration was all removed on January
2nd.

The singing in those days, in Church of England places of worship, in the
outports of Newfoundland was confined almost solely to Tate and Brady’s metrical
version of the Psalms of David. We had a few hymns printed at the end of the
Book of Common Prayer which were sung at Communion and Christmas and Easter
Days. We had also “The Lamentations of a Sinner” for Ash Wednesday. We had
Bishop Ken’s Morning and Evening Hymns. The Evening Hymn was frequently sung at
Evensong. The Christmas Hymns were only three in number—
“Hark! The herald-angels sing, ” “While Shepherds watched their flocks, ” and
“High let us swell our tuneful notes.” But the grandest and oldest of all
Christmas Hymns, the “Adeste Fideles, ” was absent. I was a young man before
ever I heard it sung at public worship. During Revd. Mr. Bullock’s charge of
Trinity the Hymn Book of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the U. S. A. was in
use at St. Paul’s; but after Mr. Bullock left Trinity in the autumn of 1839 this
book fell into disuse. In the earlier part of my father’s time at Trinity a hymn
from this book was occasionally sung at a funeral, but on no other occasion. The
first Hymn Book used in this Diocese by authority, viz: by order of Bishop
Feild, as late as 1862, was the first edition of hymns, 300 in number, published
by S. P. C. K. I remember well how some of the old folk grumbled at the use of
this Hymn book, and derision called the hymns, “babies ditties.” They said that
the hymns were none of them worthy to be compared with Tate’s, “O come, loud
anthems, ” or “Thou Lord, by strictest search hast known.” Indeed for years the
custom was to sing a psalm and a hymn alternately at public worship. Prejudice
dies hard.

There were then no furnaces in outport Churches. We had two stoves at old St.
Paul’s, but most of the heat from them went into the galleries. We on the floor
got but little of it at the morning service. Jack Frost was in evidence at
Christmas time fifty years ago. Sermons, too, were long. Never less than half an
hour, generally ten minutes longer. I remember how enviously, as a little boy, I
used to look upon my mother’s large muff
and wish that I could
have it on the pew floor, and taking off my boots, slip my icy-cold feet into
its warm embrace.

The choir was in the gallery at the west end of the Church. In 1857, we had
from London a large harmonium, of Alexander’s make but previously thereto the
musical instruments in use were a violin and a “cello, ” or, as we used to call
it, a “bass viol.” In Mr. Bullock’s day there were two violins in the choir’s a
first and second, and also the bass-viol.

Now I must, I suppose in conclusion, say something about the sports we indulged
in fifty years ago. At Christmas we had as outdoor amusements, “rounders, ”
football, and “coasting” with sleds. Also, if snow suited, combats with snow
balls—one side calling itself English and other Russian. I need hardly say that
the English always gained the victory, for the Russian party deemed itself in
duty bound to run away towards the close of the fight. You see it was the time
of the Crimean War. In the accounts of the war’s battles, Alma, Inkerman and
Balaclava, and the siege of Sebastopol then in progress, we were deeply
interested. In winter, we had only a fortnightly mail; sometimes stormy weather
and ice prevented our hearing from the world south of us for a month or six
weeks. Owing to a tremendous ice-blockade in the winter of 1861-62—and Trinity
is only sixty miles north of St. John’s.

When the condition of the ice favoured it, we had skating and sliding. Though
few of us could accomplish any fancy skating, yet many of us could skate
swiftly, and also a long time, without getting tired. Our footballs was of
primitive construction. It consisted of the inflated bladder of some animal. The
instrument of inflation was not a small air-punp, and rarely a bellows, though
bellows were common enough in those days at every fireside. No, it was the
broken stem of a clay tobacco pipe in the mouth of the strongest winded person,
male or female, that we could get to undertake the office of inflator. This
bladder was carefully enclosed in a bag made of the strongest canvas procurable,
for if it received only the slightest puncture it was past all repair. Our
football was not always in shape globular, but more frequently it assumed the
form of an oblong cylinder, like an empty cartridge-case. I forgot now exactly
how the “grown ups” played football, but I remember that we youngsters played it
by no certain rule. We had not even goals. The champion player was he, who by
one kick, could either send the ball highest into the air, or to the
farthest distance. But if the latter, he must send it over
the heads of the other players, or else in such a direction that none of them
could catch it while in transit. If thus caught the kick was counted a failure.
All very primitive you will say, but nevertheless we managed to get a good deal
of fun of our play. We played solely for amusement, therefore there was no sore
feeling engendered by our sport. From the night of Christmas Eve and during
Christmas week and on New Year’s Night the “mummers” were out. Of these and
their amusing antics I need say nothing now, as two years ago I described them
in the columns of
Christmas Bells
.

Fifty years ago we who were then children spent a happy Christmas. I trust that
all the readers of
Christmas Bells
, and especially the little readers,
may in this coming Christmas of 1906 be even happier than we were in the
Christmases that are so long ago. I must needs love the children. While seated
by my own fireside on Christmas Day; if spared to see it, there will come to me
visions of happy children`s faces that were once here with me in the flesh, but
now, like Rachel`s children, `They are not. “The Christ-Child has taken them to
Himself. By his abounding mercy. They have reached a fairer region, far away!”
When at eventide the lamps are lit, we, their parents, trust that we too shall
be permitted to go in and with them worship Christ the King— “The God, the Lord,
by all adored, for evermore.”