The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1883-04-19
A NEW QUESTION.
whom Does Sunday ReRinT When does IL



End7
Professor Tyndan in Nineteenth Century.l
Theologians were Mortified whom first
informed that our planet was n sphere
The question of antipodes exercised them
for long time, most of them pouring
ridicule on the idea that men could exist
with their feet turned toward us, and
with their heads pointing downward [
think it is Sir George Airy who refers to
tho case of an ovor-curious individual
asking what we should SEQ if we went to
the edge Of the world and looked over.
That the earth was flat surface on which
the sky rested was the belief entertained
by the founders of all our great religious
systems. Even liberal Protestant thco-
logians stigmatized the Copernican the
ory as being "built on fallible phcno-
mona and advanced by many arbitrary
assumptions against evident testimonies
OF Scripture" Newton finally placed
his intellectual crowbar beneath these
ancient notions, and hcavcd them into
trretrievablo ruin. Then it was that
penetrating minds, seeing the nature of
the change wrought by the now astron-
omy In our conception, of the universe,
also discovered the difil ,ulty, if not tho
impossibility, of accepting literally the
Mosaic account of creation. They did
not reject it, but they assigned to it q
meaning entirely now. DR.. Samuel Clark,
who was tho personal friend of Newton
and supporter Of his theory, throw out
the idea that "possibly tho six days of
creation might be a typical representa-
hon OF greater periods" Clark's con-
temporary, DIR. Thomas Burnct wrote
with decision in tho same strain. Tho
Sabbath being regarded as shadow or
type of that heavenly repose which tho
righteous will enjoy when this world has
passed away, $50 these six days of cren-
tion are SO many periods or millonniums
for which the world and the tolls and
labors OF our present state are destined
to endure" The Mosaic account was
thus reduced to poetic myth-a Wow
which afterward found expression in tho
vast reveries of Hugh Miller. But if
this symbolic Interpretation, which is
now generally accepted, be the true one,
what becomes of the Sabbath day?' 1t
Is absolutely without ecclesiastical mean
ing and tho man who was executed for
gathering sticks on that day must be
regarded as tho victim of n rude legal
rendering of religious epic There are
many minor Oflshoots of discussion from
Horsely has defined day cas- consisting
OF one evening and one morning, or. as
the Hebrew words literally import, of
the decay of light and tho return of it."
But what then, it was asked, becomes of
the Sabbath in tho Arctic regions, where
light takes six months to "dccay" and as
long to "return ?" Differences of longi-
tude, moreover, render the observanccs
Of the Sabbath at the same hours i'm
possible. TO some people such questions
might appear trifling; to others theywere
Of the greatest import. Whether tho
Sabbath should stretch from sunset TO
sunset, or from midnight to midnight
was also subject of much discussion,
Voices, moreover, wero heard refusing to
acknowledge the prOpriety of the change
from Saturday to Sunday, and tho doc
trine OF Seventh Day observance wos
afterward represented by sect. The
earth's sphericity and rotation, which
had ut first been received with such af
fright, came eventually to the aid of those
affiic+"d with qualms and difficulties ro
garding the respective claims of Satur
day and Sunday. The sun apparently
moves from east to west. Suppose, then.
we start on voyage round the world in
u westerly direction. In doing so We
SAIL away, as it were, from the sun, which
follows and periodically overtakes us,
reaching the meridian of our ship each
succeeding day somewhat later than if
we staod still. For every fifteen degrees
OF longitude traversed by the vessel tho
sun will be exactly an hour late: and,
after the ship has traversed twcntyfour
times fifteen degrees, Or $50 degrees
that is to say, the entire .circlo of the
earth-the sun will be exactly day be-
hind. Here, then, is the expedicnt
suggested by DR.. Wallis, +. r.. s.
SaVlllan Professor of Gcomentry in The
University of Oxford, to quiet the minds
Of those in doubt regarding Saturday
observance. He recommends them to
make voyage around the world, as Sir
Francis Drake did, "going out of the
Atlantic Ocean westward by the Straits
OF Magellan to the East Indies, and then
Iom the east, returning by the Cape of
GOOD Hope homeward, and let them
keep their Saturday Sabbath all the wav,
When they come home to England thSy
will find their Saturday to fall upon our
SUNDAY, and they may henceforth con.
tinue to observe their Saturday Sabbath
on the same day with u.s."
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John (luineV kdaus-IEis Iost No