So they went on until the hymns were finished.

After a general handshaking and repeated farewells and the avowed hope of meeting again come the second Sunday in May next year, the funeralizing ended.

OLD CHRISTMAS

Though in some isolated sections of the Blue Ridge, say in parts of the Unakas, the Cumberlands, the Dug Down Mountains of Georgia, there are people who may never have heard of the Gregorian or Julian calendar, yet in keeping Old Christmas as they do on January 6th, they cling unwittingly to the Julian calendar of 46 B.C., introduced in this country in the earliest years. To them December 25th is New Christmas, according to the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1752.

They celebrate the two occasions in a very different way. The old with prayer and carol-singing, the new with gaiety and feasting.

To these people there are twelve days of Christmas beginning with December 25th and ending with January 6th. In some parts of these southern mountain regions, if their forbears were of Pennsylvania German stock, they call Old Christmas Little Christmas as the Indians do. But such instances are rare rather than commonplace.

Throughout the twelve days of Christmas there are frolic and fireside play-games and feasting, for which every family makes abundant preparation. There is even an ancient English accumulative song called Twelve Days of Christmas which is sung during the celebrations, in which the true love brings a different gift for each day of the twelve. The young folks of the community go from home to home, bursting in with a cheery "Christmas gift!" Those who have been taken unaware, though it happens the same way each year, forgetting, in the pleasant excitement of the occasion, to cry the greeting first, must pay a forfeit of something good to eat--cake, homemade taffy, popcorn, apples, nuts.

After the feast the father of the household passes the wassail cup, which is sweet cider drunk from a gourd dipper. Each in turn drinks to the health of the master of the house and his family.

Throughout the glad season some of the young bloods are inclined to take their Christmas with rounds of shooting into the quiet night. Some get gloriously drunk on hard cider and climbing high on the mountain side shout and shoot to their hearts' content.

However, when Old Christmas arrives, even the most boisterous young striplings assume a quiet, prayerful calm. The children's play-pretties--the poppet, a make-believe corn-shuck doll--the banjo, and fiddle are put aside. In the corner of the room is placed a pine tree. It stands unadorned with tinsel or toy. On the night of January 6th, just before midnight, the family gathers about the hearth. Granny leads in singing the ancient Cherry Tree Carol, sometimes called Joseph and Mary, which celebrates January 6th as the day of our Lord's birth.

With great solemnity Granny takes the handmade taper from the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, places it in the hands of the oldest man child, to whom the father now passes a lighted pine stick. With it the child lights the taper. The father lifts high his young son who places the lighted taper on the highest branch of the pine tree where a holder has been placed to receive it. This is the only adornment upon the tree and represents a light of life and hope--"like a star of hope that guided the Wise Men to the manger long ago," mountain folk say.

In the waiting silence comes the low mooing of the cows and the whinny of nags, and looking outside the cabin door the mountaineer sees his cow brutes and nags kneeling in the snow under the starlit sky. "It is the sign that this is for truth our Lord's birth night," Granny whispers softly.

Then led by the father of the household, carrying his oldest man child upon his shoulder, the womenfolk following behind, they go down to the creek side. Kneeling, the father brushes aside the snow among the elders, and there bursting through the icebound earth appears a green shoot bearing a white blossom.

"It is the sign that this is indeed our Lord's birth night, the sign that January 6th is the real Christmas," old folk of the Blue Ridge bear witness.

FOOT-WASHING

He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.

After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

"It is writ in the Good Book," said Brother Jonathan solemnly, "in the thirteen chapter of St. John, the fourth and the fifth verses."

With hands meekly clasped in front of him Brother Jonathan stood--not behind a pulpit--but beside a small table. Nor did he hold the Book.

That too lay on the table beside the water bucket, where he had placed it after taking his text.

It could be in Pleasant Valley Church in Magoffin County, or in Old Tar Kiln Church in Carter County; it could be in Bethel Church high up in the Unakas, or Antioch Church in Cowee, Nantahala, Dry Fork, or New Hope Chapel in Tusquitee, in Bald or Great Smoky. Anywhere, everywhere that an Association of Regular Primitive Baptists hold forth, and they are numerous throughout the farflung scope of the mountains of the Blue Ridge.

"He laid aside his garments ... and after that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the feet of the disciples...." Again Brother Jonathan repeated the words.

Slowly, deliberately he went over much that had gone before. This being the third Sunday of August and the day for Foot-washing in Lacy Valley Church where other brethren of the Burning Spring Association had already been preaching since sunup. One after the other had spelled each other, taking text after text. And now Brother Jonathan--this being his home church--had taken the stand to give out the text and preach upon that precept of the Regular Primitive Baptists of washing feet. It was the home preacher's sacred privilege.

Old folks dozed, babies fretted, young folks twisted and squirmed in the straight-backed benches. A parable he told, a story of salvation, conviction, damnation. But always he came back to the thirteenth chapter of St. John. He spoke again of that part of the communion service which had preceded: the partaking of the unleavened bread, which two elders had passed to the worthy seated in two rows facing each other at the front of the little church; the men in the two benches on the right, the womenfolk in the two benches facing each other on the left. Among these, who had already examined their own conscience to make sure of their worthiness, had passed an elder with a tumbler of blackberry juice. He walked close behind the elder who bore the plate of unleavened bread.

The first said to each worthy member, "Remember this represents the broken body of our Lord who died on this cross for our sins." The second intoned in a deep voice, "This represents the blood of our Lord who shed his blood for our sins." All the while old and young throughout the church house had sung that well-known hymn of the Regular Primitive Baptists.

When Jesus Christ was here below, He taught His people what to do;

And if we would His precepts keep, We must descend to washing feet.

That part of the service being ended, Brother Jonathan exhorted the flock to make ready for foot-washing.

The men in their benches removed shoes and socks. The women on the other side of the church, facing each other in their two benches, removed shoes and stockings. A sister arose, girthed herself with a towel, knelt at a sister's feet with a tin washpan filled with water from the creek, and meekly washed the other's feet. Having dried them with an end of the long towel, she now handed it to the other who performed a like service for her. This act of humility was repeated by each of the worthy. All the while there was hymn-singing.

The menfolk who participated removed their coats and hung them beside their hats on wall pegs.

"It is all Bible," the devout declare. "He laid aside His garments. We take off our coats."

Brother Jonathan and the other elders are last to wash each other's feet.

And when the service is ended and the participants have again put on their shoes, they raise their voices in a hymn they all know well:

I love Thy Kingdom, Lord, The House of Thine abode, The church our blessed Redeemer saved With His own precious blood.

The tin washpans were emptied frequently out the door and refilled from the bucket on the table, for many were they, both women and men, of the Regular Primitive Baptist faith who felt worthy to wash feet.

At the invitation everyone arose and those who felt so minded went forward to take the hand of preacher, elder, moderator, sister, and brother, in fellowship. An aged sister here, another there, clapped bony hands high over head, shouting, "Praise the Lord!" and "Bless His precious name!"

Again all was quiet. Brother Jonathan announced that there would be foot-washing at another church in the Association on the fourth Sunday of the month and slowly, almost reluctantly, they went their way.

NEW LIGHT

SNAKE BITE IS FATAL. RELIGIOUS ADHERENT DIES FROM BITE AFTER REFUSING MEDICAL AID

The death of 48-year-old Robert Cordle, who refused medical aid after being bitten by a rattlesnake during church services, brought 1,500 curious persons today to a funeral home to see his body.

While the throngs passed the bier of the Doran resident, the Richlands council passed an ordinance outlawing the use of snakes in religious services and sent officers to the New Light church to destroy the reptiles there.

Commonwealth's Attorney John B. Gillespie, who estimated the visitors at the funeral home totaled 1,500, said after an investigation that no arrests would be made. He explained that the state of Virginia has no law, similar to that in Kentucky, forbidding the use of snakes in church services.

J. W. Grizzel of Bradshaw, itinerant pastor who preached at the services Thursday night when Cordle was bitten, was questioned by Gillespie.

The Commonwealth's attorney quoted Grizzel as saying:

"I was dancing with the snake held above my head. Brother Cordle approached me and took the snake from my hands. I told him not to touch it unless he was ready."

After a moment, the rattler struck Cordle in the arm, Gillespie said Grizzle told him. Cordle threw the snake into the lap of George Hicks, 15, and then was taken to the home of a friend and later to his own home.

--The Ashland Daily Independent

CHILD, SNAKEBITTEN AT RITES, MAY GET MEDICAL CARE

Kinsmen of snake-bitten Leitha Ann Rowan permitted her examination by a physician today, but barred actual treatment and claimed she was recovering rapidly in justification of their sect's belief that faith counteracts venom.

The six-year-old child was brought to Sheriff W. I. Daughtrey's office today by relatives, after having been missing for three days while her mother, Mrs. Albert Rowan, sought to avoid treatment for the girl.