He told her that
he had left these to the last for a reason: seemingly they were the
most trivial but really the most grave; for by means of them most
clearly could be traced the presence of great law running through the
progress of humanity.
He drew her attention to the tinsel that covered the tree, draping it
like a yellow moss. It was of no value, he said, but in the course of
ages it had taken the place of the offering of actual gold in forest
worship: a once universal custom of adorning the tree with everything
most precious to the giver in token of his sacrifice and
self-sacrifice. Even in Jeremiah is an account of the lading of the
sacred tree with gold and ornaments. Herodotus relates that when
Xerxes was invading Lydia, on the march he saw a divine tree and had
it honored with golden robes and gifts. Livy narrates that when
Romulus slew his enemy on the site of the Eternal City, he hung rich
spoils on the oak of the Capitoline Hill. And this custom of
decorating the tree with actual gold goes back in history until we can
meet it coming down to us in the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece
and in that of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. Now the custom
has dwindled to this tinsel flung over the Christmas Tree--the mock
sacrifice for the real.
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