[RobbyS]

Very true. We tend to forget how bourgeois Protestantism was/is. especially the “reform” or Calvinist branch. Max Weber dwells on this as he shows the influence of Calvinism on the development of Capitalism. The split between Catholic and Protestant Europe is most evident in the contrast between the baroque and the puritan attitude toward leisure, which is reflect in its art. Lutheranism and Anglicanism provide a kind of medium between extravagance and plainness, between the celebration of beauty and suspicion of it.

[AnAmericanMother]

I always remember that the Roundheads, the Scotch Presbyters, and the Pilgrim Fathers banned Christmas . . . .

List to me and you shall hear, news hath not been this thousand year:
Since Herod, Caesar, and many more, you never heard the like before.
Holy-dayes are despis'd, new fashions are devis'd.
Old Christmas is kicked out of Town.
Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down.