Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1893 — EASTER SUNDAY. [ARTICLE]

EASTER SUNDAY.

Eaßter Sunday came this year on April 2d. Easter day is always the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21, and if the‘full me on happens upon a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday alter. Originally there was a feast of the lentnic goddess Ostein, the Goddess of Spring, whence comes our An-glo-Saxon Easter. The festival was introduced by preparatory fasting. Some fasted one day, some two, some forty hours —that is, the number of hours during which Jesus was supposed to have been a tenant of the tomb. Later the time was extended to fo* ty days in imitation of fast of forty days in the wilderness.— Hence came Lent, which, in its present form, embraci. g a period of forty days, cannot be traced back beyond the end of the sixth century. With the old, but not the oldest Christians, the resurrection was all in all.