The name given (chiefly by members of the Society of Friends) to Sunday, as being the first day of the week.
a. 1690. G. Fox, Jrnl. (1694), I. 168. Upon the first-day after, I was moved to go to Aldenham steeple-house.
a. 1713. Ellwood, Autobiog. (1765), 101. One First-day in four, there was a more general Meeting (which was thence called the Monthly-Meeting) to which resorted most of the Friends of other adjacent Meetings.
1843. Whittier, First Day in Lowell, Prose Wks. 1889, I. 369. ‘If you would see’ Lowell ‘aright,’ as Walter Scott says of Melrose Abbey, one must be here of a pleasant First day at the close of what is called the ‘afternoon service.’
attrib. 1773. Hist. Brit. Dom. N. Amer., II. iv. 278. First-day Baptists, whose weekly holiday is the Sunday, as in use with all other Christians.
1872. Whittier, The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, 385.
| Fair First-Day mornings, steeped in summer calm, | |
| Warm, tender, restful, sweet with woodland balm, | |
| Came to him, like some mother-hallowed psalm. |
