gle proof or indication that it was at any
time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of
Constantine in A.D. 321."--_"Examination of Six
Texts," p. 291._

This law of Constantine's was as follows:

"On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people
residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In
the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely
and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens
that another day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for
vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such
operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th
day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of
them for the second time.)"--_Schaff, "History of the Christian
Church," Vol. III, chap. 5, sec. 75._

Commenting on this law, Prof. Hutton Webster, of the University of
Nebraska, says:

"This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to
Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in
his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of
the sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in
the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred
calendar."

"What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a
Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees,
during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with
increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday."--_"Rest
Days," pp. 122, 270._

Dean Stanley (Church of England) writes:

"The retention of the old pagan name _Dies Solis_, or Sunday,
for the weekly Christian festival, is, in a great measure,
owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which
the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his
subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the 'venerable day of
the sun.'"--_"History of the Eastern Church," lecture 6, par.
15._

Thus the Sunday institution comes in, marked by its pagan origin, and
adapted to ecclesiastical purposes by the church of the "falling away"
that grew into the Roman Papacy. To quote again from the Baptist author,
Dr. Hiscox:

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in
early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from
the Christian Fathers and other source