The Virginia Gazette

The Season of the Year will, I hope, excuse the Trouble which I give, in observing, that the Celebration of the Feast of December, and the Freedoms of Life which are taken therein, were in Use among the Romans, many Years before the Birth of our Saviour Christ.

It may not be amiss to inform the Reader, that the Primitive Christians solemnized this Feast with the same sacred Magnificence and Festivity, wherein they performed their Agape or Love Feast; that Original of the more pure and modern Manner, wherein we receive the Eucharist now. But then, in Process of Time, Profuseness, Luxury, and even Vice, crept into both those innocent and holy Observances.

The above mentioned Licentiousness of the antient Christians is banished, no doubt, from our Altars; but then we cannot say, that we are altogether free from their Luxury in other Places at this Time of the Year; or that we do not imitate that pompous and profuse Manner wherein the old Roman Flamen and Pontiffs celebrated their Feast of December, in Honour of Saturn.

But to be clear in what I intend to say on this Subject at this Time, I observe,

1. That some Christians celebrate this Season in a Mixture of Piety and Licentiousness.
2. Others perform their Offices in a pious Way only.
3. Many behave themselves profusely and extravagantly alone. And,
4. Too many, who call themselves Christians, pass over this holy Time, without paying any Regard to it at all.

From all which we conclude,

1. That those Persons must stand self-condemned, who throw these Holy Days into the common Portion of Time; because, both Heathenish and Christian Antients witness loudly against them.
2. Little need be said to those who celebrate this Festival in Extremes. 'Tis as ridiculous to do nothing but fast and mortify all Christmas, and to keep a Monkish Holiday, as it is to banquet and carouse alone, and make a Bacchanalian Time of it.

What passed at Bethlehem, calls not for the same Behaviour with what happened at Mount Calvary; and tho' we are to offer Wine and Frankincense, and are taught to sing Gloria in Excelsis; yet we are forbid Excess in such like Sacrifices, and every Degree of Rant and Riot in expressing our Exultation and Joy.

3. The Persons chiefly to be addressed to, are those who stand first in my Division, and who celebrate the Nativity in a Method composed out of both these Extremes, and behave themselves both piously and impiously on the Occasion. There are People who prepare themselves most religiously for the approaching Rituals, and who, upon the Day, perform their Offertory and Sacrifices in the most Solemn Forms of Religion; but their Devotions end with that Night; and The other World, which they had so fairly bid for on Christmas-Day, is quite absorbed in the good Things of the present World, a few Days after.

On the whole, they who will be over-religious at this Time, must be pardoned and pitied; they who are falsely religious, censured; they who are downright criminal, condemned; and the little Liberties of the old Roman December, which are taken by the Multitude, ought to be over-looked and excused, for an Hundred Reasons, which hardly any Understanding can be ignorant of.