When they reached a certain standard of civilisation all peoples seem to have had such a day set apart. It was a want that arose out of the keener struggle for existence, a mutual truce to the war of competition. But the day itself varied. The Greeks divided their lunar month into decades, having thus three festival days in a month. The Romans, we are told, divided it into periods of eight days, though I do not know how they managed their arithmetic or got eight into twenty-nine without some awkward remainder. And in the farther East it was usual to celebrate the full moon and the new moon and the days half way between as days of rest. A lunar month consisting of sometimes twenty-nine and sometimes thirty days, the period between rest days was sometimes six days as in a week, and sometimes seven days. Thus among the Burmese, although there are, as usual, seven days named after the sun, moon, and planets, the rest day goes by the day of the month, not by that of the week, just as it did with the Accadians. For in the East a month remains a month; it is the life of a moon. It begins with the new moon and ends with the fourth quarter, and is easily reckoned by any villager. With us in the North the age of the moon has ceased to be of any importance. Our life after dark is indoors, where we have lights and the moon is of no use to us. Our houses are lit artificially, and very few Europeans could tell at a moment's notice how old the moon is. But in the East it is not so. With them the night is the time for being out of doors, and when they go to their houses it is only to sleep. The nights are cool after the hot day, and on the full moon nights the world is full of light. The night of the full moon, when the scent of flowers is on the still air and all about is full of magic, is one of the great beauties of this world. But of it we know nothing in Europe. Therefore in colder climates the month by the moon was abandoned, and reckoning the year by the sun took its place. And as civilisation progressed it was inconvenient to be uncertain about which was the day of rest, so it became the custom to make it every seventh day, regardless of the moon. This seems to have obtained first in Egypt and to have spread over the civilised world, the seventh day being the Sabbath. But it still remained a day of rest, unassociated, except by the Jews, with religion. The early Christians kept no Sabbath. They kept the first day of the week as a day of rejoicing, to celebrate the rising of Christ. Indeed, the Jewish Sabbath was considered as abrogated, and the first day of the week was kept, much as it is now kept on the Continent, as a day of rest, of rejoicing, of relaxation after work. So it was observed till the Reformation.