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A TABLE TO FIND EASTER DAY, FROM THE PRESENT TIME TILL THE YEAR 1899 INCLUSIVE, ACCORDING TO

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THIS Table contains so much of the Calendar as is necessary for the determining of Easter; To find which, look for the Golden Number of the year in the first Column of the Table, against which stands the Day of the Paschal Full Moon; then look in the third column for the Sunday Letter, next after the day of the Full Moon, and the day of the Month standing against that Sunday Letter is Easter Day. If the Full Moon happens upon a Sunday, then (according to the first rule) the next Sunday after is Easter Day.

To find the Golden Number, or Prime, add one to the Year of our Lord, and then divide by 19; the remainder, if any, is the Golden Number; but if nothing remaineth, then 19 is the Golden Number.

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10

11

XII

12

13

14

15

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stituted which still retains the name of Vigil. The Vigil is not therefore connected with the Evening Service, but is the day before the Festival to which it belongs, and since (according to the accustomed habit of the Church) the Festival itself begins on the evening previous, the Vigil ends before that Evening service (if there is more than one) which is observed as the first Vespers of the feast. That, in medieval times, the whole of the day before the Festival was observed as the Vigil may be seen by the following Rubric for the first Sunday in Advent: "Non dicatur etiam per totum annum Te Deum laudamus in Vigiliis, nec in quatuor temporibus, nisi in Vigilia Epiphaniæ quando in Dominica contigerit, et præterquam in quatuor temporibus hebdomadæ Pentecostes." The Te Deum was used at Mattins: the use of it here referred to must therefore be at the Mattins of the Vigil. Some remarks on the observance of Vigils may be found in Tracts for the Times, No. 66, pp. 11, 12.

The accession of the Sovereign was first observed as a "Solemn Day" in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but no mention of such a day was made in the Prayer Book until late in the last century. The above notice of the day has not therefore the authority of the Sealed Books, nor of the Act of 1752, but is printed in

deference to Royal Proclamations dated June 21st, 1837, and Jan. 17th, 1859.

§ The Table to find Easter till 1899.

This Table is an extract from the first three columns of the Calendar during the Paschal limits, or the period during which Easter Day must always fall. It was substituted in 1752 (with the succeeding one) for "a Table to find Easter for ever" which had been printed in previous Prayer Books, but which had been framed on a mistaken supposition respecting the perpetual appli cation of the cycle of Golden Numbers to fixed days of the months. A change in the application of the cycle will be necessary in the year 1900, (provided for by another Table further on,) when the above will be superseded for all future calcula

tions.

The Golden Numbers and the Sunday Letters are explained in the notes to the General Tables for finding them.

These Tables are a solution of a difficulty about the determination of Easter Day, which caused considerable trouble to the Church when astronomy, and consequently Chronology, was imperfectly understood. The Nicene Council (A.D. 325) endea

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To make use of the preceding Table, find the Sunday Letter for the Year in the uppermost Line, and the Golden Number, or Prime, in the Column of Golden Numbers, and against the Prime, in the same Line under the Sunday Letter, you have the Day of the Month on which EASTER falleth that year. But Note, that the Name of the Month is set on the Left Hand, or just with the Figure, and followeth not, as in other Tables, by Descent, but Collateral.

voured to settle this difficulty and the Quartodeciman controversy [see notes on Easter Day] by the following epistolary decrees :1. That the twenty-first day of March is to be taken as the vernal equinox.

2. That the full moon happening upon or next after the twentyfirst day of March is to be taken for the full moon of the month Nisan.

3. That the next Lord's Day after that full moon is to be observed as Easter Day.

4. Unless the full moon happens upon a Sunday, when Easter Day is to be the next Sunday.

But to observe these rules it was necessary to ascertain the age of the moon and although this could be done correctly for a period by means of a cycle of the moon discovered by Meton, an Athenian philosopher, which set forth the change of the moon for nineteen years, and which was supposed to repeat itself ad infinitum, yet a more accurate knowledge of astronomy showed that

this rule was subject to error, and that Easter Day was sometimes too early and sometimes too late to commemorate our Lord's Resurrection with the accuracy which was intended by the Nicene Council. This erroneous system was not corrected, however, until the introduction of the "New Style" by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582; and the New Style was not introduced into England until 1752, when the Act of Parliament was passed from which the present Calendar is printed.

These Tables for finding Easter, together with those which follow, are part of the Act of Parliament referred to [24 Geo. II. c. 23], and have not received the same authority as the Prayer Book itself. Nor does there seem to be any practical necessity for binding them up with every edition of the Prayer Book as is the present custom, since they are of far too recondite a character to be of any use except to highly scientific students; and for ordinary use the Table of Moveable Feasts is amply sufficient.

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[N.B. This Table is only a representative and not a facsimile of the Table in the Act of Parliament. The latter extends from 1752 to 1804.]

THE EPACT.

The difference between the length of the solar year and that of the lunar year is eleven days; the solar year being made up of 365 days, and the lunar year of twelve months or moons, of twentynine and a half days each, or 354 days in all. The last day of the lunar year being the last day of the twelfth moon, and the last day of the solar year being the 31st of December, the difference between these constitutes the Epact'. In the first year 4 5 | 6 |

Golden Numbers | 1 2 3 Epacts

of the present cycle the lunar year and the solar year both commenced on the 1st of January; the Epact for the second year was therefore 11, for the third 22, for the fourth 33, and so forth in a regular succession. The whole months are not reckoned, however, and instead of 33, the Epact is taken as 3, instead of 36 as 6, and so forth.

A cycle of nineteen Epacts is thus formed which always runs parallel to the nineteen Golden Numbers in the following order:

7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

| 0 | 11 | 22 | 3 | 14 | 25 | 6 | 17 | 28 | 9 | 20 | 1 | 12 | 23 | 4 | 15 | 26 | 7 | 18

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NOTE, that in a Bissextile or Leap Year, the Number of Sundays after Epiphany will be the
same, as if Easter Day had fallen One Day later than it really does. And for the same
reason, One Day must, in every Leap Year, be added to the Day of the Month given by
the Table for Septuagesima Sunday: And the like must be done for the First Day of Lent
(commonly called Ash-Wednesday), unless the Table gives some Day in the Month of
March for it; for in that case the Day given by the Table is the right Day.

The order in which this Table follows the others makes its use sufficiently evident. The two first Tables being given for the purpose of finding the date of the Festival by which all the moveable Holy days are regulated, and a third added which sets forth all the moveable Holydays for many years to come, this

Table is given as a means of finding out for any year, past or future, the respective dates of these days, according to that of Easter. The Note respecting Leap Year must not be overlooked when this Table is used.

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THE Golden Numbers in the foregoing Calendar
will point out the Days of the Paschal Full
Moons, till the Year of our Lord 1900; at which
Time, in order that the Ecclesiastical Full Moons
may fall nearly on the same Days with the real
Full Moons, the Golden Numbers must be
removed to different Days of the Calendar, as is
done in the annexed Table, which contains so
much of the Calendar then to be used, as is
necessary for finding the Paschal Full Moons,
and the Feast of Easter, from the Year 1900, to
the Year 2199 inclusive. This Table is to be
made use of, in all respects, as the first Table
before inserted, for finding Easter till the
Year 1899.

XIV

March 22

III

23

24

ΧΙ

25

26

XIX

27

VIII

28

29

XVI

30

V

31

April 1

XIII

II

3

4

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