Its traces are discoverable at a very great distance of time from ours,--nay, seem as old as a sense of joy for the benefit of plentiful harvests and human gratitude to the eternal Creator for His munificence to men.

We hear it under various names in different counties, and often in the same county; as, "melsupper," "churn-supper," "harvest-supper," "harvest-home," "feast of in-gathering," etc.

And perhaps this feast had been long observed, and by different tribes of people, before it became preceptive with the Jews.

However, let that be as it will, the custom very lucidly appears from the following passages of S.S., Exod.xxiii.16, "And the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field." And its institution as a sacred rite is commanded in Levit.
xxiii.

39: "When ye have gathered in the fruit of the land ye shall keep a feast to the Lord." The Jews then, as is evident from hence, celebrated the feast of harvest, and that by precept; and though no vestiges of any such feast either are or can be produced before these, yet the oblation of the Primitae, of which this feast was a consequence, is met with prior to this, for we find that "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord" (Gen.iv.