2>«« S. VII. Jan. 15. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



51 



tive of the Tattis, Buffalmaccos, Giottinos, and 

 other sprawlers of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 

 fifteenth centuries, when the glorious sun of the 

 reformation of Art, Truth, and Nature burst 

 fortli in the works of Perugino, da Vinci, Gior- 

 gione, Correggio, Buonarotti, D'Urbino, Vecelli, 

 Giulio Romano, Tibaldi, Primaticcio, Mazzuolo, 

 Tintoretto, the graceful Guido, and all the other 

 great and glorious post-Raffaellites whom Taste 

 delights to honour. Fabbicius Pictor. 



" WHERE DOES THE DAT BEGIN ? " 



(2"<J S. vi. 498.) 



During the last three or four centuries Euro- 

 peans have advanced eastward into the eastern, 

 and emigrated westward throughout the western 

 hemisphere. As, however, the Russian settlers in 

 N. America have penetrated eastward to about 

 130 deg. W. long., it is probable that each day 

 is commenced by them, while their neighbours, 

 the inhabitants of New Caledonia, are the last to 

 commence the day. 



The inhabitants of Manilla form an exception, 

 because the Spaniards took possession of Manilla 

 by sailing luestward from America to the Celebes 

 Islands. 



In consequence of the globular form of the earth, 

 there is not a simultaneous, but a consecutive 

 keeping of the Sabbath. The inhabitants of Great 

 Britain, at eight o'clock on Sabbath morning, may 

 realise the idea that at that hour there is a gene- 

 ral Sabbath over the earth, from the farthest east 

 to the farthest west. The Russians in America 

 are finishing their latest yes^Qrs — the Christians in 

 our own colony of New Caledonia are com- 

 mencing their earliest matins — among Christians 

 throughout the world the Sabbath is more or less 

 advanced, except at Manilla, where it is com- 

 menced at about four o'clock p.m. on our Sabbath. 

 At the first institution of the Sabbath in the gar- 

 den of Eden, it was finished in the space of twenty- 

 four hours ; but now, since Christians are found 

 in every meridian under the sun, the Sabbath, 

 from its first commencement to its final close, ex- 

 tends to forty-eight, or rather to fifty-six hours, 

 by taking the abnormal state of Manilla into ac- 

 count. 



By Adam the Sabbath was observed as one day 

 in seven ; but now that his descendants have re- 

 plenished the earth, the Sabbath by a physical 

 necessity comprises two days in eight. 



In a recent work. The Testimony of the Rocks, 

 the author asserts of Dr. Chalmers's geologic 

 scheme, " that the days of creation were but na- 

 tural days of 24 hours each," — if the creative 

 power was extended in each locality to twenty- 

 four hours, each of the six days of creation would 

 extend to forty-eight hours; and, in fact, there 



would be two different days' work going on at 

 the same time. John Husband. 



Berwick. 



PENANCE IN THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND. 



(2"'i S. vi. 433.) 



By "penance," I understand W. to mean the 

 punishment in " sackcloth" which was in old times 

 inflicted by the Kirk for incontinence. Consult- 

 ing the Register of the Proceedings of the Presby- 

 tery and Sessions of Glasgow, we find, among 

 other severe enactments of the City Ministers, 

 — Anno 1589, all relapsers in incontinence to be 

 carted through the town, and put on sackcloth ; 

 and all that put it on are to buy it at their own 

 expence, and it is to belong to the use of the 

 Kirk. — 1647. Two hair gowns bought for the use 

 of the Kirk (the material and fabric being pro- 

 bably similar to the hair cloth of the present day). 

 — 1602. Besides their ordinary repentance, appear 

 the third Sabbath on the pillar (one of those in 

 the cathedral) with sackcloth. — 1655. The West 

 Session resolves that, so long as the Englishers 

 (Cromwell's troops) continue in town, to put no 

 persons upon the pillar because they mock at 

 them, &c. 



I believe It will be a difficult matter to conde- 

 scend upon the "latest date" when sackcloth was 

 disused. It probably gradually fell into discredit 

 with the more improved light of the times, and 

 that modified system of what is popularly called 

 " rebuking" in the face of the congregation 

 adopted, and which perhaps (it may not be very 

 far wrong to say) continued pretty generally 

 (particularly in the rural districts of Scotland), 

 till within the last seventy or eighty years. The 

 humorous engraving, inscribed " Presbyterian 

 Penance," by David Allan, in which the artist 

 evidently intended to satirise this practice, may be 

 considered as tolerably close upon the period 

 above-mentioned ; and which practice, I think, 

 must then have been nearly upon its last legs, 

 though lingering here and there. In early recol- 

 lection I have seen persons publicly rebuked in the 

 Newton church of Ayr by the late Rev. William 

 Peebles, a very worthy man. On one occasion, 

 having finished his afternoon sermon, he called 

 up three couples for rebuke : one for the second 

 time, another for the third and last time ; and the 

 third couple, under the rather ominous names of 

 John Love and Margaret Merry, for ihefrst time. 

 The offenders, who stood erect in the various 

 places of the church where they sat, in their or- 

 dinary Sunday apparel, each according to his or 

 her attendant circumstances receiving a grave and 

 salutary admonition. At a much later date I 

 heard a couple rebuked in a church about eleven 

 miles from Glasgow. The crowd in the church, 

 common everywhere when such discipline was to 



