"In all our obligations we bless the Maker of all things, through his son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost, and on the day which is called Sunday, there is an assembly in the same place of all who live in cities or in country districts; and the records of the apostles, or the writings of the prophets, are read as long as we have time. Then the reader concludes, and the president verbally instructs and exhorts us to the imitation of those excellent things. Then we all arise together and offer up our prayers. And, as I said before, when we have concluded our prayer, bread is brought and wine and water, and the president in like manner offers up prayers and thanksgiving with all his strength, and the people give their assent by saying, amen. * * * But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God when he changed the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead: for the day before that of Saturn he was crucified, and on the day after it, which is Sunday, he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them these things which we have given to you also for your consideration" (I Apology, Ch. 67). We have not the space to further examine the testimony of the fathers, nor is it necessary. Sufficient has been quoted to show that in that age immediately succeeding the apostles, the practice, which seems to have begun even under the immediate supervision of the Lord himself, was firmly established in the early church. The learned writer in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Rev. James Augustus Hessev, who there treats this subject, says: The result of our examination of the principal writers of the two centuries after the death of St. John are as follows: The Lord's day (a name which has now come out more prominently; and is connected more explicitly with our Lord's resurrection than before) existed during these two centuries as part and parcel of apostolical, and so of scriptural Christianity. * * * Our design does not necessarily lead us to do more than to state facts; but if the facts be allowed to speak for themselves, they indicate that the Lord's day is a purely Christian institution, sanctioned by. apostolic practice, mentioned in apostolic writings, and so possessed of whatever divine authority all apostolic ordinances and doctrines (which are not obviously temporary, or were not abrogated by the apostles themselves) can be supposed to possess" (Vol. II, page 1679).