Millman hints at some “direct proof.” There is none; hence the correctness of his conclusion, that the people looked upon the new holiday, “as merely adding one more festival to the _fasti_ of the empire.” It was not only non-Christian but eminently unchristian. Stronger still is the testimony of an English barrister, EDWARD V. NEALE. These are his words: “That the division of days into _juridici et feriati_, judicial and non-judicial, did not arise out of the modes of thought peculiar to the Christian world must be known to every classical scholar. Before the age of Augustus, the number of days upon which out of reverence to the gods to whom they were consecrated, no trials could take place at Rome, had become a resource upon which a wealthy criminal could speculate as a means of evading justice; and Suetonius enumerates among the praiseworthy acts of that emperor, the cutting off from the number, thirty days, in order that crime might not go unpunished nor business be impeded.”[198] After enumerating certain kinds of business which were allowed under these general laws, Mr. Neale adds: “Such was the state of the laws with respect to judicial proceedings, while the empire was still heathen.” Concerning the suspension of labor, we learn from the same author that: “The practice of abstaining from various sorts of labor upon days consecrated by religious observance, like that of suspending at such seasons judicial proceedings, was familiar to the Roman world before the introduction of Christian ideas. Virgil enumerates the rural labors, which might on festal days be carried on, without entrenching upon the prohibitions of religion and right; and the enumeration shows that many works were considered as forbidden. Thus it appears that it was permitted to clean out the channels of an old water course, but not to make a new one; to wash the herd or flock, if such washing was needful for their health, but not otherwise; to guard the crop from injury by setting snares for birds, or fencing in the grain; and to burn unproductive thorns.”[199] SIR HENRY SPELMAN, who is recognized as high authority, in discussing the origin of practices in the English courts, says that all ancient nations prohibited legal proceedings on sacred days. His words are: “To be short, it was so common a thing in those days of old to exempt the times of exercise of religion from all worldly business, that the barbarous nations, even our _Angli_, while they were yet in Germany, the Suevians themselves, and others in those Northern parts would in no wise violate or interrupt it. Tacitus says of them that during this time of holy rites, _non bellum ineunt, non arma sumunt. Clausum omne ferrum. Pax et quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amat._” Speaking of the origin of the English “court terms,” Spelman says: