"In 1642," says Sandys, "the first ordinances were issued to suppress the performance of plays, and hesitation was expressed as to the manner of keeping Christmas. Some shops in London were even opened on Christmas Day, 1643, part of the people being fearful of a Popish observance of the day. The Puritans gradually prevailed, and in 1647 some parish officers were committed for permitting ministers to preach upon Christmas Day, and for adorning the church. On the 3rd of June in the same year, it was ordained by the Lords and Commons in Parliament that the feast of the Nativity of Christ, with other holidays, should be no longer observed, and that all scholars, apprentices, and other servants, with the leave and approbation of their masters, should have such relaxation from labour on the second Tuesday in every month as they used to have from such festivals and holy days; and in Canterbury, on the 22nd of December following, the crier went round by direction of the Mayor, and proclaimed that Christmas Day and all other superstitious festivals should be put down, and a market kept upon that day." In describing "The First Christmas under the Puritan Directory," the _Saturday Review_ (December 27, 1884) says:--"It must have been taken as a piece of good luck by the Parliamentary and Puritanical masters of England, or, as they would have said, as 'a providence,' that the Christmas Day of 1645 fell upon a week-day. It was the first Christmas Day after the legislative abolition of the Anglican Prayer-book and the establishment of 'the Directory' in its stead; and, if it had fallen upon a Sunday, the Churches must have been opened. A 'Sabbath' could not be ignored, even though it chanced to be the 25th of December. There can be small doubt that, if the Presbyterian and Independent preachers who held all the English parishes subject to the Parliament had been obliged to go into the pulpits on the 25th of December 1645, they would again have irritated the masses of the people by ferociously 'improving the occasion.' The Parliament had not the courage to repeat the brutal experiment of the previous year. It was easy to abolish the feast by an ordinance; but it was risky to insist by an ordinance that the English people and English families should keep the dearest and most sacred of their festivals as a fast. The rulers knew that such an ordinance would not be obeyed. They resolved simply to ignore the day, or treat it as any ordinary Thursday. Doubtless many of the members kept up some sort of celebration of the old family festival in their own private houses. But the legislators marched solemnly to the Lower House, and the 'divines' marched as solemnly to the Assembly in the Jerusalem Chamber, affecting to take no notice of the unusual aspect of the shops and streets, which everywhere bore witness to the fact that there was a deep and fundamental estrangement between 'the State' and 'the people,' and that the people were actually keeping the festival