ORIGIN AND RESULTS OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION. 13 



anything appear in the accompanying evidence, showing that Chris- 

 tians desired the law, or were in any way interested therein. It 

 applied to all the subjects of the empire alike. The day is not men- 

 tioned, except by its heathen title. There is nothing in the restric- 

 tions placed upon it unlike the restrictions which already existed con- 

 cerning many other pagan days. The following extract, from the 

 work of an English barrister, is pertinent at this point : 



"That the division of days into juridici etferati, judicial and non- 

 judicial, did not arise out of the modes of thought peculiar to the 

 Christian world, must be known to every classical scholar. Before the 

 age of Augustus the number of days upon which, out of reverence to 

 the gods to whom they were consecrated, no trials could take place at 

 Rome, had become a resource upon which a wealthy criminal could 

 speculate as a means of evading justice ; and Suetonius enumerates, 

 among the praiseworthy acts of that emperor, the cutting off from 

 the number thirty days, in order that crime might not go unpunished 

 nor business be impeded." — (" Feasts and Fasts," p. 6, by Edward V. 

 Neale.) 



After enumerating certain kinds of business which were allowed 

 under these general laws, Mr. Neale adds, " Such was the state of the 

 laws with respect to judicial proceedings while the empire was still 

 heathen." Concerning the suspension of labor, we learn, from the 

 same author, that — 



" The practice of abstaining from various sorts of labor upon days 

 consecrated by religious observance, like that of suspending at such 

 seasons judicial proceedings, was familiar to the Roman world before 

 the introduction of Christian ideas. Virgil enumerates the rural la- 

 bors which might on festal days be carried on without intrenching 

 upon the prohibitions of religion and right ; and the enumeration 

 shows that many works were considered as forbidden. Thus it ap- 

 pears that it was permitted to clean out the channels of an old water- 

 course, but not to make a new one ; to wash the herd or flock, if such 

 washing was needful for their health, but not otherwise ; to guard 

 the crop from injury by setting snares for birds, or fencing in the 

 grain ; and to burn unproductive thorns." — (Ibid., p. 86.) 



Sir Henry Spellman, speaking of the origin of English "court 

 terms," says : 



" I will, therefore, seek the original of our terms only from the 

 Romans, as all other nations that have been subject to their civil and 

 ecclesiastical monarch do and must. 



" The ancient Romans, while they were yet heathens, did not, as 

 we at this day, use certain continual portions of the year for a legal 

 decision of controversies, but, out of superstitious conceit that some 

 days were ominous and more unlucky than others (according to that 

 of the Egyptians), they made one day to be fastus or ferii day, and 

 another (as an Egyptian day) to be vacation or nefastus ; seldom two 



