An examination of Sir J. Marwick's list further shows that the dates of fairs were often fixed, not with reference to any particular holy day, but to some day of a particular month, such as the second Tuesday, or the third Thursday. Many of these occur in May. In ancient documents--in Acts of Parliaments, for instance--dates were commonly fixed by a reference to holy days. In Presbyterian Scotland such a method of marking time is not now in fashion, though some relics of the practice survive. We are still familiar with Whitsunday and Martinmas as term-days, but how few now ever think of them as ecclesiastical festivals! The meaning of customs associated with the various holy days has come to be duly recognised by the student of ecclesiastical antiquities. While the Christian year was being evolved in the course of centuries, certain festivals were introduced, as one might say, arbitrarily, i.e., without being linked to any pre-Christian usages. From the point of view of Church celebrations, they have not the same significance as those others that received, as their heritage, certain rights in vogue before the spread of Christianity. In other words, the leading pagan festivals had a new meaning put into them, and, when adopted by the Church, were exalted to a position of honour. In virtue of this, the ecclesiastical year was correlated to the natural year, with its varying seasons and its archaic festivals. There is no doubt that in early times the Church sought to win nations from paganism by admitting as many of the old customs as were deemed harmless. We have seen how this was effected in the case of fountains, as shown by Columba's exorcism of the demons inhabiting springs. The same principle prevailed all round. The old Saturnalia of the Romans, for instance, became the rejoicings of Christmas. To the distinctively Christian aspects of the festival we do not, of course, allude, but to the customs still in vogue at the Yule season; and these are nothing more than a revised edition of the old pagan rites. Among other Aryan peoples the winter solstice was also commemorated by similar merry-makings. Church festivals, such as Candlemas, Easter, St. John's Day, St. Peter's Day, Michaelmas, Hallowmas, Christmas, &c., absorbed many distinctive features of the old pagan fire-festivals, held in connection with the changes of the seasons. The kindling of fires out of doors, on special occasions, is familiar to all of us. They may be called modern folk-customs; but their origin is ancient enough to give them special significance. Even to the present time, twinkling spots of light may be seen along the shores of Loch Tay on Hallow E'en, though the mid-summer fires do not now blaze on our Scottish hills, as they continue to do in Scandinavia and elsewhere. Among the Bavarian Highlands these mid-summer fires are popularly known as Sonnenwendfeuer, i.e., solstice-fires. That they are so called and not St. John's fires (though lighted in connection