The belief in the supernatural agency in the temptation of Eve, the temptations of Jesus, the possibility of the miraculous conception, and the miracles of Christ, were but stepping-stones to faith in innumerable invisible but potent powers. One who can conscientiously believe in the supernatural as found between the covers of the Bible can, by but a slight stretch of the imagination, believe any preposterous tale that is woven about a supernatural agency. If one can believe a woman can conceive without contact with semen, one can believe some old woman can dry up his cow. If one can believe that Jesus actually raised Lazarus from the dead, one can believe that a man can kill him by sticking pins in a wax effigy. If one can believe that Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot, one can believe that Goody Jones rode a broomstick through the air. If one can believe that the Christ was actually tempted by the devil, one can believe in succubæ and incubi. It is all a matter of logical reasoning. As soon as a Christian's intellectual powers develop to a point where he can find no place for the miraculous in the world about him, he begins to doubt that which was in the world before him; but, regarding theological tales, he either places them in another category or ignores them, unless faced with them, when he crawls and calls them "sacred mysteries." That an old woman can sour his milk or kill his child by the evil eye he does not believe, for reason has taught him otherwise. And for the same reason he would not believe his daughter if she told him she was pregnant with a miraculous child. He did not believe Josephine Woodbury when she made a similar statement in Boston a few years ago. But he does believe it of Mary, because it is a "holy mystery," and is in another category. He has inherited his faith from a long line of orthodox ancestors, and he has never stopped to consider it by the light of pure reason. It is fortunate for the dogma of the virgin birth that it took root when people believed such things, otherwise Mary would have been adorned with the scarlet letter.
Feasts, fasts and elaborate ceremonials were important features of the most ancient worships, and it is not, therefore, strange to find somewhat modified adaptations of them in the Christian church. For, wherever Christianity wandered and found firmly implanted religious theories and customs, it immediately gave them new significations and accepted them, until finally the greater part of paganism was gathered from all parts of the civilized world and amalgamated into one strong theological organization. Finding in almost every nation a festival at the winter solstice, in commemoration of the accouchement of the celestial, virgin queen of heaven, and the birth of the sun-god, the Christian fathers decided to adopt the 25th of December as the natal day of their Christ.