RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
New Thought
New York Sabbath Committee
Christian Church held aloof, and penitential sermons were appointed for the day, warning against participation in the heathen feasts. But inasmuch as Christian participation in the feasts of the pagans did not cease, the Church prescribed a three-days' fast at New Year (Second Council of Tours, 567, canon xvii.), and in the decrees of later synods, the festival of Jan. 1 is mentioned among prohibited pagan customs ; as late as 1270, in a form of procedure by the inquisitors for hearing persons who were suspected of taking part in idolatry and evil arts, it was prescribed that they be also examined as to whether they had spent Jan. 1 in heathen fashion (cf. J. Hansen, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns, p. 43, Bonn, 1901). From the fourth century, when the festival of the Nativity was instituted on Dec. 25, the first of January had come to be the "octave of Christmas " when, after Luke ii. 21, the circumcision and naming of Jesus were celebrated (see below), and neither in the missals nor in homilies is there any reference to the beginning of a new year. This was the more natural because in the Church the year opened with Christmas or with Mar. 1, or Mar. 25, or Easter. But since in civil life the year still began with Jan. 1, and as all calendars adhered to this usage, the Church could not continually disregard the same. The matter was first espoused by the inferior clergy, who, deferring to the uneducated, contrived the caricature of a serious festival, in the so-called feast of fools (see Fools, Feast of). Toward the close of the Middle Ages, the Dominicans introduced the custom of " dispensing New Year from the pulpit," that is, of conveying to their hearers appropriate wishes in the sermon on New-year's day. Luther preached on Jan. 1 of the circumcision of Jesus, and rejected a celebration of the beginning of a new year on that day as a heathen custom. Nowadays the first of January is celebrated in the Evangelical churches as the beginning of a new year. Moreover, the custom was occasionally revived of " dispensing New Year " from the pulpit. In the Roman Catholic Church, the feast of the naming of Jesus has been set, since 1721, for the second Sunday after Epiphany, while Jan. 1 has continued to be the festival of the circumcision. Carl Bertheau.
The festival of the circumcision of Christ is observed on Jan. 1 in the Greek, Roman Catholic, and Anglican Churches, and was placed on this day, the eighth after Christmas, with reference to Luke ii. 21. It is a double of the second class and a feast of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church, and a " red-letter day " in the Anglican. The services for the day have no relation to the beginning of the civil year.
Bibliography: Consult the literature under Feasts and Festivals; also Bingham, Origines, XX., i. 3; H. Alt, Der christliche Cultus, vol. ii., Berlin, 1843; C. P. Caspari, Eine Augustin falschlich beigelegte homilia de sacrilegiis, pp. 10, 12-13, 33 sqq., 49, Christiania, 1886; E. C. Achelis, Lehrbuch der praktischen Theologie, i. 278 sqq., Leipsic, 1898; DCA, ii. 1387-1389.
NEW YORK SABBATH COMMITTEE: An or-
organization formed in 1857 to promote the observance of the Lord's Day, and especially to secure the enforcement of the laws which protect the quiet and
order of Sunday and the right of all classes to the weekly rest. It grew out of a prevalent feeling of the need of some measures to check the growing public desecration of Sunday, and the alarming increase of drunkenness, disorder, and violent crimes on that day. At a conference of prominent citizens a permanent committee of twenty was formed, to whom the conduct of the reform was committed, with power to fill vacancies in their own number. The committee was composed of leading laymen, representing the different denominations and the various business and social interests of the city. Norman White, a layman who had taken the chief part in initiating the movement, was made chairman, and to his eminent zeal, wisdom, and perseverance the success of the committee in its earlier years was very largely due; an efficient secretary and executive officer was found in the person of R. S. Cook, who had previously been a secretary of the American Tract Society. The committee, from the beginning, secured the hearty support of the clergy, both Protestant and Roman Catholic. It adopted, and has always adhered to, these principles in its work: viz., clearly to discriminate between the Sabbath as a religious and as a civil institution, and carefully to respect the proper limitations of civil intervention in guarding the weekly rest; to keep the one issue distinct from other measures of reform; to avoid impracticable measures; to recognize the controlling power of public sentiment, and to take no step until the way should be prepared for it; to advance one step at a time; to work through the constituted authorities, giving as little prominence as possible to its own agency; and to conduct its work on such broad and just grounds as to secure the cooperation of the widest possible constituency.
The committee undertook, successively, the suppression of the noisy crying of newspapers on Sunday, the Sunday selling of liquor, Sunday theatrical entertainments, noisy processions and parades on Sunday, unnecessary Sunday work on the public streets, and other encroachments upon the rest and quiet of the day, incident to a large city.
To accomplish these reforms, additional legislation was necessary and has been secured from time to time; notably the Sunday theater Law, the Sunday processions law, amendments to the excise law, the reenactment of the Sunday statutes in the penal code of 1882, and the like. In recent years vigilant efforts have been required to meet the assaults upon the Sunday laws in the alleged interests of the large foreign-born population. The committee from the beginning has made large use of the public press and especially has issued a series of carefully prepared documents discussing the various aspects of the Sunday question. These documents and occasional fly-leaves, circulars, etc., have been printed in large numbers and widely distributed in English and other languages. Several of them have been reprinted in Europe. Especial pains have been taken to enlist the wage-earning classes in the maintenance of their weekly rest.
The success of the committee from the start was so signal that its influence was felt in inspiring movements in the same direction in other cities.
New York Sabbath Committee Newman, Albert Henry