1} 



SI X DAY. 



SUNDIAL. 



920 



the fint three centuries. At early u the end of the second century, 

 abntiiieuce friu worldly business teems to have been customary. 

 (Tertulli.in. Do Oral.', c. 23.) It was accounted a day of rejoicing, a 

 faut anil nut a fast, and to fast upon thin day was deemed unlawful. 

 Upon it the Christians prayed standing, instead of kneeling, to intimate 

 tli.' elevation of their hopes through their Lord's resurrection. The 

 public worship of the Christians on the Sunday in the first two 

 centuries U described by Justin Martyr (' Apolog.'), whose account is 

 particularly interesting, and by Tertullian (' Apolog.', c. 89 ; compare 

 Buseb., ' Hist. Hoc.' iii. S, and iv. 23). 



As soon as the Christian religion came to be recognised by the state, 

 laws were enacted for the observance of the Sunday; Constantino 

 (in 821) ordered the suspension of all proceedings in the courts of law, 

 except the manumission of slaves, and of all other business except 

 agricultural labour, which was allowed in cases of necessity ('Cod. 

 Jutin.', Ui., tit. 12, 2, 8 ; Cod. Theodos.', viii., tit 8, 1, 8) ; and.as 

 Eusebius tells us (' Vit. Const.,' iv., IS, 19, 20), he forbade all. 

 military exercises on Sunday. The laws of Constantine were repeated 

 by subsequent emperors, with additions, of which one of the moat 

 important is that of Theodosius II. (in 425), by which the games and 

 theatrical exhibitions were forbidden on Sunday. (' Cod. Theodos. 1 

 xv., tit. 7, 1, 5.) The most strict of these laws is that of Leo ami 

 Anthemius. (460, 'Cod. Justin.', iii., tit. 12, 8.) It should be 

 observed that the provisions of most of these laws extend to all the 

 principal sacred days observed by the Church. 



In all Christian communities the Sunday has been observed with 

 more or leas strictness, the degrees of which seem to depend on three 

 different views which are held respecting its character. Some regard 

 all the provisions of the fourth commandment as extending to it, 

 admitting however an exception in the case of " works of necessity 

 and mercy;" others agree with these in abstaining from worldly 

 business and amusements, because they think that only thus can the 

 mind be fitted for the religious services which ore observed on this 

 day ; while others, viewing it as a day of rejoicing, a Christian festival, 

 devote a part of the day to religious worship, and 'the remainder to 

 recreation. To these views ought to be added a fourth, which, though 

 never adopted, we believe, by any church, has been the opinion of 

 many eminent theologians, namely, that there is no divine authority 

 for making a distinction between Sunday and other days. The whole 

 subject has been fully examined by Dr. Hessey in his 'Hampton 

 Lecture Sunday, its Origin, History, and Present Obligations," I860. 



SUNDAY, the first day of the week, a day kept holy by Christians. 

 The common law is silent as to the observance of Sunday, and it seems 

 once to have been the practice not only to exercise worldly callings on 

 that day, but also especially to devote some part of it at least to sports 

 and pastimes, such as now prevail in continental countries, both 

 Protestant and Roman Catholic. This practice continued till some 

 time after the Reformation. Plays are said to have been performed on 

 Sundays at the court of Elizabeth, and even of Charles I. The first 

 restriction that appears among the printed statutes is by the 27 Hen. 

 VI., c. 5, which enacts that all fairs and markets held on Sundays shall 

 cease (the four Sundays in harvest excepted), on pain of the forfeiture 

 of the goods exposed for sale. Immediately after the Reformation in 

 England the legislature regulated the observance of Sunday. The first 

 statute relative to the subject, the 5 & 6 Ed. VI., c. 3, recites that 

 there is not any certain time, or definite number of days, prescribed in 

 Scripture to be kept as holy-days, but the appointment o them is left 

 to the Church, to be assigned in every country by the discretion of the 

 rulers and the ministers thereof. The statute proceeds to enact that 

 certain days mentioned, such as Christmas Day, Good Friday, &c., and 

 all Sundays in the year, shall be kept holy-days ; but it provides that 

 in harvest, or any other time when necessity shall require, any kind oi 

 work may be done upon those days. No penalty is attached to the 

 infringement of this Act. It is said to have been drawn up under the 

 inspection of Cranmer. By the 1 Eliz., c. 2, all persons having no 

 lawful or reasonable excuse to be absent, are to resort to their accus- 

 tomed parish church or chapel on Sundays, or to forfeit twelve pence, 

 which was recoverable before justices. The party so offending is also 

 mode amenable to ecclesiastical censure, but is only liable (to one 

 punishment, be it ecclesiastical or civil. Soon after this time the 

 Puritans and other strict religionists attained [wlitical influence 

 Entertaining a greater predilection for the history and economy of the 

 Jews, as contained in the Old Testament, than had hitherto been 

 exhibited in the Christian world, they began to style Sunday, a term 

 which they thought profane, as derived from Saxon idolatry, the 

 " Sabbath, or " The Lord's Day," names which are not used in the 

 statutes previous to that period. In accordance with this mode o! 

 thinking, they seem to have been of opinion that the Christian Sunday 

 ought to be observed in the some manner as the Jewish Sabbath. It was 

 with a view to counteract such opinions, that, in 1618, James I. wrote 

 his ' Book of Sports,' in which he declares that dancing, archery, leap- 

 ing, vaulting, May-games, YVhitaun-ales, and morris-dances were lawful 

 and that no such honest mirth or recreation should be forbidden to his 

 subjects on Sundays after evening service. The ' Book of Sports' was 

 re-published by Charles I. in 1638. (5 ' Harleian Miscellany,' 75.) Tht 

 Puritans, however, becoming the stronger party, their opinions pre- 

 vailed, and there followed a rapid succession of enactments in further- 

 ance of them. But the most important statute on the subject is 



29 Chas. II., c. 7, which tnacU (sect. 1) that no tradesman, artificer, 

 workman, labourer, or other person whatsoever, shall do or exercise 

 any worldly labour or business or work of their ordinary callings on 

 iho Lord's day (works of necessity and charity only excepted) ; and it 

 rohibits the sale and hawking of wares and goods. Sect. 2 prohibits 

 Irovers, horse-coursers, waggoners, butchers, higglers, and their servants 

 from travelling, and the use of boats, wherries, lighters, or barges, 

 except on extraordinary occasions. By sect. 3 the dressing of meat in 

 [undies, the dressing and selling it in inns, cook-shops, or victualling. 

 houses, and crying milk before nine and after four, ore excepted from 

 the operation of the Act. By sect 6 persons are prohibited i'r..m 

 serving or executing any process, warrant, Ac. (except in cases of 

 treason, felony, or breach of the peace), on the Lord's day : the si-rvi.v, 

 &c., is made void, and the person serving it is made liable to damages, 

 as if he had acted without any writ, &c. 



By the 10 & 11 Will. III., c. 24, mackerel "are permitted to be sold 

 before and after divine service on Sundays, and forty watcnm 

 allowed to ply between Vauxhall and Limehouse. The 21 Geo. III., 

 c. 49, enacts that no house, &c., shall open for any public entertainment 

 or amusement, or for publicly debating on any subject on Sundays. 



The 7 & 8 Goo. III., c. 75, repeals that part of 29 Chas. II. which 

 relates to travelling by water. By 34 Geo. III., c. 61, bakers .-in- 

 enabled, between nine and one o'clock on Sundays, to bake for persons 

 things which are brought to their oven. By 1 & 2 Will. IV., c. 22, 

 drivers of hackney-carriages may ply, and are compellable to Hi i 

 Sundays. The 3 Will. IV., c. 19, empowers the court of aldermen, or 

 two justices, to regulate the route of stage-carriages, cattle, &c., on 

 Sundays. These two statutes relate to London only. The 3 & 4 

 Will. IV., c. 31, provides that the election of corporate officers, 

 &c., required to be held on any particular day, shall take place on 

 Saturdays or Mondays, when the day specified in the Act happens to be 

 a Sunday. 



Under these enactments the courts have determined that a contract 

 or sale which, though made on Sunday, is not in .the exercise of the 

 ordinary calling of the parties, is valid. Thus a contract of hiring 

 between a farmer and a labourer, and a bill of exchange drawn on a 

 Sunday, have been held to be good. The owner of a stage-coach is 

 not included within the provisions of any of the statutes on the subject; 

 the words " other person whatever," in 29 Chas. II., being restricted 

 in application to persons of the same classes as those enumerated by 

 name. An action, therefore, may be maintained against him for 

 neglecting to take a passenger. Only one offence can be committed l>y 

 the same party against the provisions of 29 Chas. II., c. 7, by exercising 

 his ordinary calling on a Sunday. Several statutes regulate the hours 

 within which public-houses and other places of refreshment may be 

 kept open on Sunday, the regulation thus made being enforceable by 

 penalties summarily recoverable before magistrates. 



SUNDAY SCHOOLS. [SCHOOLS.] 



SUNDIAL. Up to a comparatively recent period the science of 

 constructing sundials, under the name of Guomonics, was an import- 

 ant part of a mathematical course. As long as watches were scarce, 

 and clocks not very common, the dial, which is now only a toy, was in 

 actual use as a timekeeper. Of the mathematical works of the 17th 

 century which are found on book-stalls, none are so common as those 

 on dialling. All that is now necessary is to give some idea of the 

 prir.oipleson which such instruments are constructed, as an illustration 

 of a loading fact in astronomy. If a person were to place a staif in the 

 ground, so as to point either vertically or otherwise, and to watch its 

 shadow at the same hour, on different days at some intervals from each 

 other, marking its direction at each day's observation, he would in all 

 probability find that the direction of the shadow, the hour being 

 always the same, varied from day to day. He might, however, find 

 that the shadow was always in one direction at the same hour, and this 

 might happen in two different ways. First, he might by accident fix 

 the staff in a direction parallel to that of the earth's axis, in which case 

 the direction of the shadow would always be the same at the same 

 hour, at all times of the year, and for every hour. Secondly, having 

 fixed the staff in a position not parallel to the axis of the earth, 

 he might happen to choose that particular hour, or interval between 

 two hours, at which the shadow of a staff in that one direction always 

 points one way. But if, as is most likely, he were to fix the staff in a 

 direction which is not that of the earth's axis ; and if, as is again most 

 likely, he were to choose any time of observation but one, the shallow 

 would certainly point in different directions at different periods. 



A sundial consists of two parts : the style, which is the staff above 

 mentioned, usually supplied to the edge of a plate of metal, always 

 made parallel to the earth's axis, and therefore pointing towards the 

 north ; and the dial, which is another plate of metal, horizontal or not, 

 on which are marked the directions of the shadow for the several hours, 

 their halves and quarters, and sometimes smaller subdivisions. In the 

 accompanying diagram, the style is seen throwing its shadow between 

 the directions marked IX and X, on the western side, and indicating 

 that it is about a quarter past nine in the morning. But there is one 

 prominent part of the figure wliich is never seen on a dial, namely, the 

 hour circles, which are represented as all passing through the edge of 

 the style. As the diagram stands, a skeleton globe of hour circles only 

 is made a part of the construction, to assist in the explanation. 



Let us suppose the sun to move with an equable motion, BO that it 



