In England, the same veneration seems to have been bestowed, time out of mind, upon the holly. Its glossy, pointed leaves symbolize the crown of thorns, and the berries the crimson blood-drops that gathered upon the Saviour’s brow. Like the fir, it is ever green and full of life—as the love of Christ to mankind. Indeed this almost instinctive association of green boughs and all bright, growing things with the joy and beauty of religious life, extends throughout written history. The Israelites in the desert were taught (if they had not already adopted a custom which was thus merely confirmed and sanctified) to “take the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days” (Leviticus 23: 40).
So, too, the wreaths of green leaves attributed to the Greek and Roman deities, and awarded to those who seemed most godlike, in peace or war. When Christ entered Jerusalem, the fittest expressions of the joy, the thanksgiving and the reverent worship of the multitude were the palm branches, strewn in the path of him who was victorious over Evil, and who—not conquered death, but showed him to be only the angel of Life, with the shadowy side of his face turned towards us, as he comes between us and the Everlasting Light.
In the early days of England the Druids were accustomed to go forth at Christmas and gather the sacred mistletoe; while even the poor and humbler folk brought evergreen and hung it up in their cottages, that the gentle spirits of the forest might dwell there in safety till the sun should shine again. In these modern days it has become the fashion to use evergreens more and more generously. The two largest of the Boston markets are surrounded, for a week preceding Christmas day, with a spicy forest of spruce and fir-trees, while the sidewalks are half hidden beneath great fragrant heaps of “princess pine” and “creeping Jenny,” in the form of wreaths, crosses and trimming. Holly, too, is used in larger quantities every year, and altogether the times seem to be returning, which dear old Sir Walter longed for when he sung:
Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new-born year