that the keepers of this feast were to be
debarred from the privileges of the Church, and also punished by the
magistrates.

Notwithstanding these measures, the people still inclined to observe
Yule, for fifty-six years after, in 1649, the General Assembly appointed
a commission to make report of the public practices, among others, "The
druidical customs observed at the fires of _Beltane_, _Midsummer_,
_Hallowe'en_, and _Yule_." In the same year appears the following minute
in the session-book of the Parish of Slains.--(See Rust's _Druidism
Exhumed_.)

26th Nov., 1649.--"The said day, the minister and elders being convened
in session, and after invocation of the name of God, intimate that Yule
be not kept, but that they yoke their oxen and horse, and employ their
servants in their service that day as well as on other work days."

Dr. Jamieson quotes the opinion of an English clergyman in reference to
such proceedings of the Scotch Church:--"The ministers of Scotland, in
contempt of the holy-day observed by England, cause their wives and
servants to spin in open sight of the people upon Yule day, and their
affectionate auditors constrain their servants to yoke their plough on
Yule day, in contempt of Christ's nativity. Which our Lord has not left
unpunished, for their oxen ran wud, and brak their necks and lamed some
ploughmen, which is notoriously known in some parts of Scotland." By
going back to the time of the Reformation, and finding what then were
the practices of the people in the celebration of the Yule festival, and
then by comparing these with the practices in vogue at the commencement
of this century during the New Year festivities, we shall be led to
conclude that the principal change effected by the Church was only
respecting the time of the feasts, and we can thus perceive that the
veto was not directed against the practices _per se_, but only against
the conjunction of these practices, Pagan in their origin, with a feast
commemorative of the birth of Christ. As they could not hold Christmas
without retaining the Yule practices along with it, they resolved to
abolish both.

Let us then pursue this retrospect and comparison. About the time of the
Reformation the day preceding Yule was a day of general preparation.
Houses were cleaned out and borrowed articles were returned to their
owners. Work of all kind was stopped, and a general appearance of
completion of work was established; yarn was reeled off, n