being presumed too weak and delicate to undergo the operation sooner, without danger of its life. It seems to have been the practice among the Jews for children to be circumcised at home; nor was a priest the necessary or ordinary minister, but the father, mother, or any other person could perform the ceremony, as we see in the time of Abraham, (Gen. xvii.; Acts vii.) and of the Maccabees, (1 Mac. 1.) St. Epiphanius, (Haer. 20.) Whence F. Avala, in his curious work entitled _Pietor Christianus_, printed at Madrid in 1730, shows that it is a vulgar error of painters who represent Christ circumcised by a priest in the temple. The instrument was sometimes a sharp stone, (Exod. iv. Jos. v.,) but doubtless most frequently of iron or steel. 9. Rom. ii. 29. 10. Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Jer. iv. 4. 11. The pagan Romans celebrated the _Saturnalia_, or feast of Saturn, from the 17th of December during seven days: at which time slaves dined with their masters, and were allowed an entire liberty of speech, in the superstitious remembrance of the golden age of the world, in which no distinction of ranks was yet known among men. (Macrob {}, 10. Horat. &c.) The calends also of January were solemnized with licentious shows in honor of Janus and the goddess Strenia: and it is from those infamous diversions that among Christians, are derived the profane riots of new year's day, twelfthtide, and shrovetide, by which many pervert these times into days of sin and intemperance. Several councils severely condemn these abuses; and the better to prevent them, some churches formerly kept the 1st of January a fast-day, as it is mentioned by St. Isidore of Seville (lib. 2 offic c. 40) Alcuin (lib. de div offic) &c. Dom Martenne observes, (lib. de antiquis ritibus in celebr. div. offic. c. 13,) that on this account the second council of Tours in 567 ordered that on the calends of the circumcision the litany be sung, and high mass begun only at the eighth hour, that is, two in the afternoon, that it might be finished by three, the hour at which it was allowed to eat on the fasts of the stations. We have among the works of the fathers many severe invectives against the superstitions and excesses of this time. See St. Austin, (serm. 198, in hunc diem,) St. Peter Chrysologus, (serm. in calendas,) St. Maximus of Turin, (Hom. 5, apud Mabill. in Musaeo Italico,) Faustinus the Bishop, (apud Bolland. hac die. p. 3,) &c. The French name Etrennes is pagan, from _strenae_, or new-year gifts, in honor of the goddess Strenia. The same in Poitou and Perche, anciently the country of the Druids, is derived from their rites. For the Poitevins for Etrennes use the word Auguislanneuf, and the Percherons, Equilans, from the ancient cry of the Druids, _Au guy l'an neuf_, i.e. _Ad Viscum, annul novus_, or to the mistletoe the