Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1882-11-01

Sunday it was cxtctly three hundred
years from The dHv when, Italy, Spain and
Portugal wrote q ''Oher -, whereas the
lay before they hal written Ott0bar l.
rhis corrected tine was adopted two
months il,cr in France; D.; ia" Cuh)lir
portion Of Germany. switzerland and the
Netherlands in 1888; by Poland in 1856 :;
by Hungary in 1851; by Protestant Ger
many in 100; By England and this coun-
try in l7j2 while Sweden Jumped in l753
from February II TO March /. and the
Greek church has never adopted the Gre
gorian calender. All Russia prefers the
pagan time Of julius Cesar to the better
reckoning introduced by the bull Of Pope
Gregory NH. Russia to-day writes DC
tober 4 and in the history Of this country
the days from September 3 TO ii, l1j2,
have no existence Up to thlt time all
Off ,ial documents are given in the o S
or old sy'c,-which accounts for many
discrepancies in the early dttcS Of our
history.
How much time and discussion las it
cost TO establish tn present calendar! The
earliest way of counting time, except by
days and nights, was by months, or the
waning and the waxing moon. When this
system failed the more civilized countries
counted by seasons; they were governed
by the sun, but retained the shorter divis.
ions of time indicated by the moon. The
result was the year, with its twelve un-
equal months. The true length of the
solar year was approximately known in
Egypt as early rs fourteen centuries, b G
The Romans began with year of ten
months; the Roman kings fixed the sol ltr
year at 3Gj days, and occasionally inserted
IN extra month. In 4G B. G. Julius C,e SAT,
taught by So5igenes, ordered the conven-
tional year to begin when the sun was
lowest at midday. lie fixed the length of
the year ut 365 days, but inserted an extra
day once in four years, between February
% and 2l, and thus made the conventional
year eleven minutes and fourteen seconds
longer than the true or solar year. In 130
years this made whole days difference.
Yet the world retained the Julian cal
endar for 1000 years, when Pope Gregory
XIII, especially authorized by the famous
council of Trent, Introduced change.
This correction rested upon the a5tronomi-
cal calculations of John Muller and Mich.
oas Copernicus. 1t enabled the ecGle5ias-
tics to return to the better time which pre-
VAILED during the famous council of Nice,
when the rule was adopted that Elster
must follow the first full moon after the
spring equinox, Gregory retained the
Julian rule that every year which can be
divided by four without leaving Il fraction
shall be leap year; bit Gregory added
the additional rule that years ending in
two ciphers, like 1900 or 1900, shtll not
be a leap year unless they can be divided
by 400 without leaving u fraction. Ac,
cordinTly 1900 will not be Il leap year.
while 2000 will be. This will work well
enough for about 5000 years, when the
Gregorian calendar will be wrong one day.
The quarrel in the early church concern
ing the true Easter day led to several
schisms. which were condemned by the
Ncenc fathers in 32j. Even the Roman
church did not accept the true rule until
the sixth century. AT Nicp the Jewish
custom and its followers, the QWGtrotecj.
manj $50 called from Nissan NV, us the
beginning of the Pasha festivaD, were
condemned, and tho patriarch Of Alexan-
dril was instructed to calculate the tcrlli-
ms p1SchlljS, which was found to be
between March 2l and April Is. whence
Easter may occur rs early rs March .,
and us late rs April D. Ia similar way
the Gregorian reform was resisted by the
protostants, and especially by the protes-
tant princes. The Germans protested that
the regulation Of the calendlr was an i'm
perial prerogative, because the calendar
of the time WAS the work of Julius Caesar,
and not the pope, and because the Njcene
work was done under the presidency of
Constantine. This prejudice reignel still
longer in England and her colonies, where,
to 1852, the wear began on March %, and
only since 1913 on January /.
We owe our twelve months TO KiuI
Numa, and the names Of our month, to
the Romans. When they had but ten
months, they had no name for January and
February, and up to Cwiars time they
called July q4intHjs, August S-eii5.
These names were dropped in honor of
Julius Caesar and Augustus. Cmlstr in
troluced also the present longth of the
months and made the civil year begin on
January /. The word calendar is derived
| from the Roman cllGnae, the first day oi
every month, and is the slme as cylinder
and the verb calender, while the names of
our days are mostly tran5latjons from the
Latin.