THE festivals of Rome are innumerable; but five of the most important may be singled out for elucidation, viz., Christmas-day, Lady-day, Easter, the Nativity of St. John, and the Feast of the Assumption. Each and all of these can be proved to be Babylonian. And first, as to the festival in honour of the birth of Christ, or Christmas. How comes it that that festival was connected with the 25th December? There is not a word in the Scriptures about the precise day of His birth, or the time of the year when He was born. What is recorded there implies, that at what time soever His birth took place, it could not have been on the 25th of December. At the time that the angel announced His birth to the shepherds of Bethlehem, they were feeding their flocks by night in the open fields. Now, no doubt the climate of Palestine is not so severe as the climate of this country; but even there, though the heat of the day be considerable, the cold of the night, from December to February, is very piercing, and it was not the custom for the shepherds of Judea to watch their flocks in the open fields later than about the end of October. It is in the last degree incredible, then, that the birth of Christ could have taken place at the end of December. There is great unanimity among commentators on this point. Besides Barnes, Doddridge, Lightfoot, Joseph Scaliger, and Jennings in his Jewish antiquities, who are all of opinion that December 25th could not be the right time of our Lord’s nativity, the celebrated Joseph Mede pronounces a very decisive opinion to the same effect. After a long and careful disquisition on the subject, among other arguments he adduces the following:—”At the birth of Christ, every woman and child was to go to be taxed at the city whereto they belonged, whither some had long journeys; but the middle of winter was not fitting for such a business, especially for women with child and children to travel in. Therefore Christ could not be born in the depth of winter. Again, at the time of Christ’s birth, the shepherds lay abroad watching with their flocks in the night-time; but this was not likely to be in the middle of winter. And if any shall think the winter wind not so extreme in these parts, let him remember the words of Christ in the gospel, ‘Pray that your flight be not in winter.’ If the winter was so bad a time to flee in, it seems no fit time for shepherds to be in the fields in, and women and children to travel in.’ Indeed, it is admitted by the most learned and candid writers of all parties, that the day of our Lord’s birth cannot be determined, and that within the Christian Church no such festival as Christmas was ever heard of till the third century, and that not till the fourth century was far advanced did it gain much observance. How then did the Romish Church fix on December the 25th as Christmas-day? Why, thus: Long before the fourth century, and long before the Christian era itself, a festival was celebrated among the heathen at that precise time of the year, in honour of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven: and it may fairly be presumed that in order to conciliate the heathen, and to swell the number of the nominal adherents of Christianity, the same festival was adopted by the Roman Church, giving it only the name of Christ. This tendency on the part of Christians to meet Paganism half-way, was very early developed; and we find Tertullian even in his day, about the year 230, bitterly lamenting the inconsistency of the disciples of Christ in this respect, and contrasting it with the strict fidelity of the Pagans to their own superstition. ‘By us,’ says he, ‘who are strangers to Sabbaths, and new moons, and festivals, once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Brumalia, and Matronalia are now frequented; gifts are carried to and fro; New Year’s-day presents are made with din, and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar; oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.’ Upright men strive to stem the tide, but in spite of all their efforts, the apostacy went on, till the Church, with the exception of a small remnant, was submerged under Pagan superstition. That Christmas was originally a Pagan festival is beyond all doubt. The time of the year and the ceremonies with which it is still celebrated, prove its origin. In Egypt, the Son of Isis, the Egyptian title for the queen of heaven, was born at the very time, ‘about the time of the winter solstice.’ The very name by which Christmas is known among ourselves—Yule-day—proves at once its Pagan and Babylonish origin. ‘Yule’ is the Chaldee name for ‘an infant,’ or ‘little child,’ and as the 25th of December was called by our Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors ‘Yule-day,’ or the ‘Child’s-day,’ and the night that preceded it ‘Mother-night,’ long before they came in contact with Christianity, that sufficiently proves its real character. Far and wide, in the realms of Paganism, was this birthday observed. This festival has been commonly believed to have had an astronomical character, referring simply to the completion of the sun’s yearly course, and the commencement of a new cycle. But there is undoubtable evidence that the festival in question had a much higher reference than this—that it commemorated not merely the figurative birthday of the sun in the renewal of its course, but the birthday of the grand Deliverer.”—The Two Babylons, by the Rev. A. Hislop, pp. 30, 31.