"SAINTS OF THE CALENDAR." 



tered in the calendar have become so closely interwoven with the 

 national manners and customs, that it is unlikely that any refor- 

 mation should efface them. It is the general practice to celebrate 

 the anniversary of each individual, not, as with us, upon that of 

 his or her birth, but upon the day consecrated to the memory of 

 the saint whose name he or she bears* By this usage each day in 

 the calendar becomes as it were the peculiar property of certain 

 individuals, and to efface the saints would be practically to rob all 

 the world of their festivals. In certain times and among certain 

 people such a measure would excite an insurrection. 



6. The very first date indicated in the Almanack, that from 

 which it takes its title, and which is marked upon its back, the 

 number designating the year, may require some brief explanation. 

 What is meant, for example, by the year 1855 ? "What is its 

 beginning ? what its end ? From what point of departure are its 

 units reckoned ? 1855 since when ? These are questions to which 

 the answers are not quite so obvious as they may seem. 



7. During the first five centuries after the birth of Christ, the 

 Christians, comparatively few in number, and scattered among 

 different and distant peoples, used in their records no other mode 

 of expressing dates than those which prevailed among the nations 

 of which they severally formed a part. In 532 A.D., when their 

 numbers and importance had augmented, Dionysius Exiguus, a 

 monk of Scythian birth, proposed that all Christians should adopt 

 the epoch of the birth of Christ as their point of departure in 

 counting time and in the expression of dates. This rendered neces- 

 sary an investigation into the question of the date of that event. 

 Dionysius made historical researches, the result of which assigned 

 the birth of Christ to the 25th day of December, in the 753rd year 

 from the foundation of Rome. 



It might have been expected, therefore, that the first Christian 

 year would commence on that day, and that its anniversary 

 would be the first day of each succeeding year. It was, how- 

 ever, found inconvenient to change the commencement of the 

 year, and it was resolved to adhere to that of the Roman 

 year theretofore used by the Church that is, to the 1st January, 

 and that the first year of the Christian era should be the 

 754th year from the foundation of Rome. According to the 

 mode of reckoning finally adopted, therefore, the year 1 A.D. was 

 that which commenced at the moment of the midnight between 

 the 31st December in the 753rd, and the 1st January in the 754th 

 year of Rome. 



The uncertainty which must necessarily attend the exact date 

 of an event so remote as the birth of Christ, occurring moreover 

 in an obscure corner of a remote Roman colony, and though 



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