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This Book List Sectory 09
Page 05
Rumania is inspired by a sincere desire not to displease either of the two European Georges. Having adopted a policy of neutrality, she will maintain it to the end. Russia has expressed her satisfaction with the present attitude of Rumania, while Austria, since the beginning of the war, has avoided taking any oppressive measures against the Rumanians of Transylvania. As regards Italy, the Rumanian people harbor the friendliest intentions toward her. The Italo-Rumanian relations are most cordial. In Rumania the policy of Italy is followed with much attention. The relations of Rumania toward the other Balkan States, and especially toward Servia and Greece, are good. It is true that the Bulgarian intentions are not very clear. It appears, however, that the desire for peace is strong in Sofia, where it is felt that the interest of Bulgaria lies in adapting rather the country to the present situation than in throwing it into a struggle whose results would be unknown beforehand.
In 1067 the Conqueror kept a grand Christmas in London. He had spent eight months of that year rewarding his warriors and gratifying his subjects in Normandy, where he had held a round of feasts and made a grand display of the valuable booty which he had won by his sword. A part of his plunder he sent to the Pope along with the banner of Harold. Another portion, consisting of gold, golden vases, and richly embroidered stuffs, was distributed among the abbeys, monasteries, and churches of his native duchy, "neither monks nor priests remaining without a guerdon." After spending the greater part of the year in splendid entertainments in Normandy, apparently undisturbed by the reports which had reached him of discontent and insurrection among his new subjects in England, William at length embarked at Dieppe on the 6th of December, 1067, and returned to London to celebrate the approaching festival of Christmas. With the object of quieting the discontent which prevailed, he invited a considerable number of the Saxon chiefs to take part in the Christmas festival, which was kept with unusual splendour; and he also caused a proclamation to be read in all the churches of the capital declaring it to be his will that "all the citizens of London should enjoy their national laws as in the days of King Edward." But his policy of friendship and conciliation was soon changed into one of cruelty and oppression.
Another of these emblems of joyous festivity which is frequently seen, is a vine, with its branches and purple clusters spreading in every direction, reminding us that in Eastern countries the vintage is the great holiday of the year. In the Jewish Church there was no festival so joyous as the Feast of Tabernacles, when they gathered the fruit of the vineyard, and in some of the earlier celebrations of the Nativity these festivities were closely copied. And as all down the ages pagan elements have mingled in the festivities of Christmas, so in the Catacombs they are not absent. There is Orpheus playing on his harp to the beasts; Bacchus as the god of the vintage; Psyche, the butterfly of the soul; the Jordan as the god of the rivers. The classical and the Christian, the Hebrew and the Hellenic elements had not yet parted; and the unearthing of these pictures after the lapse of centuries affords another interesting clue to the origin of some of the customs of Christmastide.
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