How Sunday and Divers Festivals Came In.
How Sunday and other heathen customs came into the church is well illustrated by the following from a Catholic priest in a San Francisco daily in reference to "Candlemas" day: "In the early days of the Christian era, the pope found that upon this especial Sunday a procession was made by the pagans with lighted torches to a certain temple, where offerings were made to a god to whose influence they ascribed their prosperity. In order to do away with this feast, which was known as the lupercalia, the church ordered that tapers be solemnly blessed, and carried in procession to the church, in honor of the purification of the Blessed Virgin, the day to be known as Candlemas Day." And so the pagan Sunday and Easter festivals became church institutions.