Word: god
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...organize humanity without a God and without a king," cried Premier Jules Ferry, and in 1880 the Third Republic began passing the laws out of which France's public schools were born. It was an old passion with anticlerical Frenchmen, who could not forget the clergy flocking to support King Louis XVIII (1814-24) and the Bourbon restoration. The government ordered a new curriculum that was stripped of all religious overtones...
...Some of the old canticles contain poetry that still has power to evoke the mystery and miracle of Christmas, as for example the 5th century Contacio of St. Romanus of Emesa in which the Wise Men are invited to see for themselves the "rich poverty of the Son of God...
...Second Bethlehem. After the elements of the Nativity scene were established, the first recorded real crèche was made in 1223 by St. Francis of Assisi. Christmas had always been for him the "Feast of Feasts" when "God condescended to be fed by human love." In the church at the town of Greccio, three years before he died, St. Francis preached before a manger filled with hay, beside which stood an ox and an ass. Wrote an early biographer, Thomas of Celano: "Greccio was transformed almost into a second Bethlehem, and that wonderful night seemed like the fullest...
Such mechanical extravagance became particularly popular in Germany. A gilded brass Krippe was presented in about 1589 to Elector Christian I by his wife, Sophia. When wound up, a globe on top opens, showing God surrounded by angels; a wall below slides back to reveal the manger, angels come down from heaven to music, Joseph rocks the cradle, the ox and ass rise from their knees, and the shepherds march in, followed by the kings...
...This Is My God, Wouk...