Birmingham.
When and where does Sunday begin or end? (Vol. ix., p. 198.).—The Christian festival, commonly called Sunday, named by the ancient church "The Lord's Day," because that thereon the resurrection was accomplished, and the new creation, the work of Messias, commenced, this feast, I say, begins at six o'clock in the evening of Saturday, the last day of the week, at the close of that Hebrew fast; and the end of Sunday arrives at six o'clock in the evening of that first day of the week. When time was measured out, the count began with "the evening," which was created first; and which, with the succeeding morning, reckoned as the first day.
H. of Morwenstow.
This question has been, to a certain extent, before debated by Mr. Johnson in his addenda to his Clergyman's Vade Mecum, pp. 106, 107., and Ecclesiastical Law, as quoted by Wheatly, who combated his reasoning of Sunday beginning at six o'clock on the Saturday evening. Johnson rests his argument upon Deuteronomy xvi. 6., where the sacrifice of the passover is ordered "at even, on the going down of the sun;" upon Exodus xii. 6., where the whole "congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening;" and I think he might have also taken Genesis i. 5., "And the evening and the morning were the first day." Johnson says that
"The Church of England has divided her nights and days according to the Scriptural, not the civil account: and that though our civil day begins from midnight, yet our ecclesiastical day begins at six in the evening.... The proper time for vesper, or evening song, is six of the clock, and from that time the religious day begins."
Wheatly admits that "the festival is not past till evensong is ended," but does not agree to its commencing on the preceding evensong; for if it does, he cannot reconcile the rubric at the end of the Table of Vigils.
On the whole, I think Johnson has the best of the argument: and that Sunday begins ecclesiastically at six in the evening on Saturday; civilly, at midnight.
R. J. S.
Precious Stones (Vol. viii., p. 539.; Vol. ix., pp. 37. 88.).—Respecting precious stones, some information may be gleaned from the notes to Sir John Hill's translation of Theophrastus' History of Stones (8vo., 2nd edit., London, 1774).
J. M.