The Sun.
London, England, 1822-02-23 00:00:00

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QUA DRAGEMI.I ;"on, FlMlsuroaticr,n, LENT
As we gave.an explanation with respect to the
actual comMencement of Lent, under the article
of Ash-Wednesday, it is requisite, *therefoke,
only to-notice, that the Sunday now treated upon
is very_ properly denominated. the first Sunday
in Lent. The name of Lent is almost univer-
sally admitted- to have had its origin from the
old Saxon word Lenten, Letitz, signifying the
spring 'of the year, becauSe the fast it is meant
to distinguish usually happens alio*: the com-
mencement of the spring, or when the days are
fast increasing in length, which the Saxon word,
from which Lenten is derived, implied. The
ancient Christians abstained wholly from food,
until the evening of each day throughout this
long Fast : one meal was deemedAufficient for
their refreshment and support, and-the value of
what they saved by this severe privation was in
all instances given to the poor. The commonalty,
sensible of the benefits thus extended to them,
were not backward in perpetuating its remem-
brance by various apt proverbs ; occasionally,
however, they conveyed at the same time sinue
allusions to the contingencies attached to their
lowly estate, not quite expressive of entire satis-
faction. And "La carcel y la quaresrna part
los probres es hecha," that is, " The jail and
Lent were made'for poor folks," may he adduced
as a striking instance of the popular feeling in
Spain, a country celebrated above all others for
the force of its proverbial sayings.
_ _ _

The moderate use of either flesh or fish was ad-
mitted; and it remained for subsequent ingenn:ty
to create a religious distinction between the flesh
of terrene animals and fish. The object was
evidently that the Christians should subject them-
selves to self-denial, but the particular taste of
each iadividual. ought to have been known, be-
fore it could be ascertained whether that were
really effected by an abstinence from flesh or
fish, &c. :These considerations had not, however,
any weight at those periods; every Bull issued
by Papal.authority, whether of absolute or modi-
fied restriction, was most rigorously enforced ;
and we find that, about the year 1212, upwards of
ONE 11 CNDII ED persons were burnt for ventaring
to assert their opinion that it was lawful for
Christians to eat flesh during Lent; and, what
was then deemed even more sinful," for a priest
to marry at any time of the year contrary to
ecclesiastical regulation, which afterwards abso-
lutely interdicted them from even entering into
the connubial 'state ! ! Happily released in this
country from the Popish yoke, nothing but'the most
unequivocal and corroborating testimonies can
satisfy our minds that such vile proceedings
could ever have occurred : and such truly we
have ; and we 'find that these Popish tyrannies
existed in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction until
very nigh, if not quite up to, the period of the
Reformation. At the Reformation, 'abstinence
from flesh was still enjoined on all the Fridays
and Saturdays throughout the year,, as well as
other days denominated fish-days ; and Queen
ELIZABETH renewed these injunctions ; but her
orders were accompanied mith an express decla-
ration that it was not as believing any religious
difference in food, but a mere measure of policy
to promote the consumption of fish, as an encou-
ragement to sect faring men, and at the same time
to spare the stock of sheep. That feasting upon
turbots, cod with oyster sauce, carp stewed in
claret, &c. should now be deemed a mortification,
and eating of flesh, certainly as easily and rnorg
commonly obtained, a luxury, appears too much
like a jest to be easily reconciled to-nober con-
sideration. That the observation of Lent was
originally established in commemoration of our
Saviour's miraculous fasting, and to prepare the
mind for the great feast of Easter, seems generally
to be admitted by the Romish Church, and by many-
Protestant Divines-: but whether its origin can be
traced so far back as theApostles,thePopish, writers
maintain, has never been determined. IlicsiEus,
quated by EUSEBIUS, adopting the then preva-
lent idea that the miraculous fasting was de-
signed to be celebrated, seems to regard it as " a
superstitious and vain conceit, first undertaken
as an idle and vicious attempt to imitate the
powers of the Lord." The Jews' yearly P AS.•
SOVER, or feast of EXPIATION, was begun by a
solemn humiliation of forty days ; and the pri-
mitive Christians, following 'their example, ap-
propriated an annual fast as a proper 'preparative
for the commemoration of
.the great expiation,
of the sins of mankind, though the number
of days varied in different Churches, iaa
well as the practices of each in its obser-
vance ; and as it is evident only forty
hours were enjoined, from, about 12 .o'clock on
Friday, when our Lord. fell under the dominion
of death, to Sunday morningovhen ho.rose again ;
which was only subsequently augmented to those
number of dap ; there appears to be reason for
concluding that this fast was originally instituted
in solemn commemoration of the period our
SAVIOUR lay in the tomb of death, as several
eminent critics assert, and not of the miracninns
fasting, the imitation of which I R ENXUS deno-
Minated " a superstitious and vain conceit."—
Days of absti
nence before Easter were fast in-
stituted by Pope TELESPHONIS, in the second
century, but they were not enforced until thO
third. ERCOMBERT, King of Kent, first appointed
the fast of Lent in this country in tyie year 641.
Succeeding generations marked the distinctions.be-
tween the various foods : in this country iwe
find flesh to have been
.early prohibited during
Lent, though Hanna( VIII: publiShed.a. Proola,.
motion in 1543, allowing the use of
_white meats,
which continued-until by Proclamations of J AIIIU,
the First,.in 1619 and 1625; and
the First in, 1627. and 1631., flesh was again
wholly forbidden. On the Continent numorerns
ordinances ,hayo, beeii.issued to the like effect :
and by the 9th canon of the Bth Celincil of To-
ledo, .it is ordained that if any per Ons eat flesh

in Lent, they shall be deprived of the use of it
all the rest of, the year, unless compelled by un-
avoidable necessity.. Even milk, bu4er, cheese,
eggs, and any composition of which'Ahey formed
an ingredient, were included in.these severe de-
crees, and butchers were o:bliged to have licences
to kill any animal at this tnne.—Such were the
persecutions inflicted upon this country- forMeoy
by Popery. " Let us learn from the past to be
wise for the future." W. F. D.