“ The oldest literatures of the world, at all events, whether Aryan or Semitic, embody a religion of a much higher type than ancestor worship. The hymns of the Rig-Veda, for example, while not without traces of the other, yet indicate chiefly a worship of the powers of nature, connected with the regular recurrence of the seasons. ”

“ By Buddhists in China, for example, three days in the year are especially observed in honour of the Buddha,—the eighth day of the second month, when he left his home; the eighth day of the fourth month, the anniversary of his birthday; and the eighth of the twelfth, when he attained to perfection and entered Nirvāna. In Siam the eighth and fifteenth days of every month are considered holy, and are observed as days for rest and worship. At Trut, the festival of the close of the year, visiting and play-going are universal. ”

“ In the Directory for the Public Worship of God which was drawn up by the Westminster Assembly, and accepted by the Church of Scotland in 1645, there is an appendix which declares that there is no day commanded in Scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath; festival days, vulgarly called holy-days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued ”

“ Some days were fasti during one portion and nefasti during another; these were called dies intercisi. For the purposes of religion a different division of the year was made; the days were treated as festi or as profesti,—the former being consecrated to acts of public worship, such as sacrifices, banquets and games, while the latter (whether fasti or nefasti) were not specially claimed for religious purposes. ”

“ Even when incapable of higher manifestations, it can at least take the form of reverence for the dead; the grave-heap can become an altar on which offerings of food for the departed may be placed, and where in acts of public and private worship the gifts of survivors may be accompanied with praises and with prayers. ”

“ Christians were expected to attend public worship, attired in their best dress; love feasts were celebrated, and the rich were accustomed to show special kindness to the poor; fasting was strictly forbidden, and public prayers were said in a standing posture.
Later Practice.—In the present calendar of the Roman Catholic Church the number of feast days is very large. Each is celebrated by an appropriate office, which, according to its character, is either duplex, semi-duplex or simplex. A duplex again may be either of the first class or of the second, or a major or a minor. ”

“ The Mexicans, who were remarkable for the perfection of their calendar, in addition to this had an elaborate system of movable and immovable feasts distributed over the entire year; the principal festivals, however, in honour of their chief gods, Tezcatlipoca, Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, were held in May, June and December. Still more plainly connected with the revolutions of the seasons was the public worship of the ancient Peruvians, who, besides the ordinary feast at each new moon, observed four solar festivals annually. ”

“ Earlier Christian Festivals.—While making it abundantly manifest that Christ and his disciples observed the appointed Jewish feasts, the New Testament nowhere records the formal institution of any distinctively Christian festival. But we have unambiguous evidence of the actual observance, from a very early period, of the first day of the week as a holy day (John xx. 19, 26; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Acts xx. 7; Rev. i. 10) . Pliny in his letter to Trajan describes the Christians of Bithynia as meeting for religious purposes on a set day ”

“ That the custom of ghost-propitiation by some sort of sacrifice is even now very widely diffused among the lower races at least, and that there are also many curious “survivals” of such a habit to be traced among highly civilized modern nations, has been abundantly shown of late by numerous collectors of folk-lore and students of sociology ”

“ Among the most characteristic celebrations of the Egyptians were those which took place at the ἀφανισμός or disappearance of Osiris in October or November, at the search for his remains, and their discovery about the winter solstice, and at the date of his supposed entrance into the moon at the beginning of spring. ”

“ J. Rendel Harris, The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (Cambridge, 1906) ; de Rossi-Duchesne, Martyrologium Hieronymianum.
↑ “To feast” is simply to keep a festum or festival. The etymology of the word is uncertain; but probably it has no connexion with the Gr. ἑστιᾶν ↑ See Spencer, Principles of Sociology, i. 170, 280, 306. ↑ Haug, Parsis, 224, 225. ↑ “May the heavens, the waters, the firmament, be kind to us; may the lord of the field be gracious to us.... May the oxen (draw) happily, the men labour happily ”