And now by grouping all these facts together we find that long before the coming of Christ there was scattered all over the world an idea that an illuminated tree was a symbol of holiness. Therefore it was only natural that it came at last to be associated with the birthday of Christ and with the period of the winter solstice which the followers of Christ had rescued from pagan practices and pagan superstitions and adapted to the religion which He had founded. This association was made all the more natural because the candles that twinkle on the Christmas tree were anticipated in the candles lit by the Jews on their Chanuckah or Feast of Lights. Chanuckah is still celebrated among them with all the old forms. It falls on the twenty-fifth day of Kislev, or ninth month of the Jewish calendar, which roughly corresponds with our December or twelfth month. On that day, in the year 165 before Christ, the temple in Jerusalem, which had been desecrated by a Roman army under Antiochus, had been purified and rededicated by Judas Maccabeus. Antiochus had put out the lights of the seven-branched candelabra that had been kept burning ever since the temple had been finished. A jar of sacred oil, sealed with the ring of the High Priest, was discovered untouched. There seemed to be only enough for one day but when it was poured into the lamp it lasted for a full week. This miracle happened just in the nick of time, for it would have taken seven days to obtain a fresh supply of oil. It was then decreed that the week beginning with the twenty-fifth day of Kislev should be celebrated as a festival forever. Accordingly on that day in every year the Jews light a candle in every home, on the next day, two, and so on, until the seventh and last day of the feast when seven candles twinkle in every home. Now if Christ was born on the twenty-fifth day of December he probably came into the world at a time when every house in Bethlehem and Jerusalem was ablaze with lights. In this connection it may be added that one of the German names for Christmas is Weihnacht or Night of Dedication, as though it were somehow associated in the popular mind with the Jewish Chanuckah. Another curious fact which bears out the same theory is that the Catholics of the Greek Church call Christmas the Feast of Lights. With another Jewish festival Christmas has a verbal link. This is the feast of the Passover when a lamb is killed and eaten. Christ is often symbolized as a lamb. Saint John the Baptist, you remember, greeted him as “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.” CHAPTER IX THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN EUROPE We have now considered the far-off origins of the Christmas tree. We have decided that it is an adaptation of the Yggdrasil and other sacred trees of the pagan past to Christian and modern uses. Not yet, however, have we bridged the chasm that divides the history of the old tree from that of the new one.