Obligation, Feasts of, a name in the Romish Church of holy days on which work is suspended. In 1362 forty-one were cited, including Christmas, Circum- cision, Epiphany, Ascension, Pentecost, and Easter (each with the following three days). Good Friday, St. Stephen, John the Evangelist, Holy Innocents, Purification, An- nunciation, St. Mark, St. Philip and St. James, John the Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul, St. James, St. Bartholo- mew, St. Matthew, St. Michael. St. Luke, St. Simeon and St. Jude, All Saints, St. Andrew, St. Thomas the Apostle, Invention of Holy Cross, St. Thomas the IMartyr, Corpus Christi, Translation of St. Thomas the Martyr, St. Mary Magdalen, Assumption, St. Lawrence, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, Exaltation of the Holy Cross, St. Nicho- las, Conception of the Blessed Virgin Marv, the dedica- tion of the church, the patron saint of the church, and feasts ordained by the ordinary. In Worcester diocese the labor of the plough only was allowed on seven saints' days, and women's work was forbidden on the feasts of St. Agnes, St. Lucy, St. Margaret, and St. Ayatha.
In the United States of America the "holy days of obligation," though thej^ hold a very prominent place in the estimation and practice of Roman Catholics, have been reduced to the following: The Circumcision of our Lord (January 1), The F>piphany (January 6 ), The An- nunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (March 25), The Ascension of our Lord (see above). Corpus Christi, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15), All Saints (November 1), Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin INIary (December 8), Nativity of our Lord, or Christmas (December 25). (Sundaj-s, and the feasts which fall on them, are not included in this enu- meration.) In some Western dioceses the Circumcision, Epiiihany, Annunciation, and Corpus Christi are not even regarded as holy daj's of obligation. See Bar- num, Romanism as it is, ch. xvi; Walcott, Sacred Ar- chwologrj (Lond. 1868), p. 407. (J. H.W.)
Obnai'm. See Stools.
O'both (lleb. Obuth', rnS, u-ater-sldn?, i. e., accord- ing to Fiirst, hollow passes ; Sept. 'Qf3wSr v. r. Sw/Bw^), the forty-sixth station of the Israelites on their way to Canaan, near Moab (Numb, xxi, 10, 11 ; xxxiii, 43, 44), between Punon and Ije-abarim; probably south of the Dead Sea, possibly near Wady el-Ghuweit. See Ex- ode.
Obotrites, Conversion of the. See Slaves;
VlCKLINL'S.
Obrecht, Ulricii, a learned German philosopher and jurist, was descended from a noble family, and was born .July 23, 1646, at Strasburg, where he had his first educational training, and then proceeded to learn the elements of the sciences at Montbeliard and Altorf. He inherited both the inclination and taste of his an- cestors, who were all distinguished by the posts they held either in the university or in the senate of Stras- burg. The study of the Latin, (ireek, and Hebrew tongues was almost the lirst amusement of his in-
fancy; and he learned French, Spanish, and Italian by way of )Jay or diversion. At fifteen he was so good a rhetorician that he was ordered to compose and pro- nounce a Latin speech in public, which he performed with universal applause. The method prescribed by his preceptors was to suffer him to read only, the an- cient authors, that so he might draw the principles of eloquence from Demosthenes, Cicero, Quintilian, Longi- nus, etc. He also pursued the same plan in his course of philosophy. Plato, Aristotle, with all that we have of Pythagoras, were the authors which they put into his hands. But the principal bent of his studies lay to jurisprudence and history, in both of which he excelled, and filled the chairs of both in the university with great distinction. Yet such a multiplicity of sciences did not render his ideas confused ; everything was ranged in exact order in his mind; and he surprised the world not more with the prodigious extent of his knowledge than with his admirable neatness in delivering it. As soon as he had taken his licentiate's degree, he resolved to travel abroad for further improvement. With this view he went first to Vienna, in Austria, thence he passed to Venice, where his chief pleasure consisted in visiting the libraries and learned men. At his return from Italy his friends induced him to settle at Strasburg, and he gave himself up to authorship and to teaching in the university in law and history. Hitherto Obrecht had professed the Protestant religion ; but the king of France having made himself master of Strasburg, and going there in person with the whole court, Mr. Pelis- son, who came among them, and who was acquainted with him, made it a business to find Obrecht out, and to discourse with him upon that subject; and his con- version was completed by the Jesuits, who were estab- lished at Strasburg by Lewis XIV. Obrecht abjured his religion in 1684 at Paris, and put the instrument into the liands of the bishop of Meaux. Upon his re- turn to Strasburg he resumed his profession in the law; and it was about this time that he wrote the notes which we see in some editions of Grotms, Be jnre belli ac pads. In 1685 the king of France nominated him to preside, in his majesty's name, in the senate of Stra.s- burg, with the title of pnetor-royal, in imitation of the old Romans; and from that time Obrecht applied him- self entirely to public affairs. The judges of Strasburg, according to the princii}les of the Reformed religion, were empowered to dissolve marriages in case of adul- tery, and to enable the injured party to marry again. In opposition to this custom, Obrecht translated into the German tongue St. Austin's book of adulterous mar- riages, and obtained from the king a prohibition, upon pain of death, either to tolerate or solemnize the mar- riage, for the future, of any persons that were separated or divorced for adultery. This edict was made in 1687 ; and in 1688 Obrecht translated into High-Dutch the treatise of father Dez Primier, rector of the Jesuits at Strasburg, entitled The Re-union of the Protestants of the Church of Strasburg to the Catholic Chui'ch. For the rest, although by the rights of his prietorship every- thing done in the senate must necessarily pass through his hands, yet he was so expeditious and so good a manager of time that there was some little left for liis studies, which served him as a refreshment from the fatigue of business; and several valuable publications of his date from this period. But as all these things could not be done without even trespassing upon the time for his necessary meals, his health became un- avoidably impaired, and his life was suddenly brought to a close in 1701. We have other publications of his, besides those already mentioned, which are of interest to us: De vera; philosophice origine: — De philosophia Celtica. See Niceron, ]\[emoii-es, vol. xxxiv ; Haag, La France Protcstante, s. v. (J. H. W.)