secures to every important article of faith its place in the cultus of the church, and conduces to wholeness and soundness of Christian doctrine, as against all unbalanced * Philo, in liis Tract, de Cherubim (in Augusti, 1. c. p. 481 sq.), paints this differ- ence between the Jewish and heathen festivals in strong colors ; and the picture was often used by the church fathers against the degenerate pagan character of the Christian festivals. 388 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D, 311-590. and eiTatic ideas/ It serves to interweave religion witli the life of the people bj continually recalling to the popular mind the most important events upon which our salvation rests, and hy connecting them with the vicissitudes of the natural and the civil year. Yet, on the other hand, the gradual overloading of the ehm-ch year, and the multiplication of saints' days, greatly encouraged superstition and idleness, crowded the Sab- bath and the leading festivals into the background, and sub- ordinated the merits of Christ to the patronage of saints. The purification and simplification aimed at by the Reformation liecame an absolute necessity. The order of the church year is founded in part upon the history of Jesus and of the apostolic church ; in part, especial- ly in respect to Easter and Pentecost, upon the Jewish sacred year ; and in part upon the natural succession of seasons ; for the life of nature in general forms the groundwork of the higher hfe of the spii'it, and there is an evident symbolical cor- respondence between Easter and spring, Pentecost and the be- ginning of harvest, Christmas and the winter solstice, the na- tivity of John the Baptist and" the summer solstice. The Christian church year, however, developed itself spon- taneously from the demands of the Christian worship and pub- lic life, after the precedent of the Old Testament cultus, with no positive direction from Christ or the apostles. The Kew Testament contains no certain traces of annual festivals ; but - This last thought is well di-awn out by W. Archer Butler in one of his ser- mons : " It is the chief advantage of that reUgious course of festivals by which the church fosters the piety of her children, that they tend to preserve a due proportion and eqiulibrium in our reUgious views. We have all a tendency to adopt paiticular views of the Christian truths, to insulate certain doctrines from their natural accom- paniments, and to call our favorite fragment the gospel. We hold a few texts so near our eyes that they hide all the rest of the Bible. The church festival system spreads the gospel history in all its fulness across the whole surface of the sacred year. It is a sort of chronological creed, and forces us, whether we will or no, by the very revolution of times and seasons, to give its proper place and dignity to every separate article. ' Day imto day uttereth speech,' and the tone of each holy