The Magnolia gazette. [volume] (Magnolia, Miss.) 1872-current, 1886-06-04
EASTER cuRloslriEs.
How Order Is Brought out of the Appar-
ent Chaos of the Calendar.


ent Chaos of the Calendar.
A paragraph has been going the
rounds of the newspapers stating that |
Easter in 1886 fell On April 25, and that |
this had not occurred before since 1884,
and would not happen again until 1949.
This paragraph is useful only so far as
it serves to draw attention to the rarity
of the occurrence of Easter on any
given day, but, unfortunately it con-
tains an erroneous statement, for Easter
has occurred on April 25 since 1874
namely, in 1891. However, the subject
itself is worthy Of attention, since it
seems admirably to illustrate some of
the curious features of the calendar and
to show how order is brought out of APP
parent chaos, for there are many SEEM
ingly discordant and inharmonious ele-
ments entering into the problem of de-
terming certain dates, which, after long
periods, are found to blend and har-
monize with mathematical precision.
Every one knows that Easter is the
Sunday following the first full moon oc-
curing after March 81, and since this
moon may fall on any day between the
21st of March and the Goth of April, it is
apparent that the chances of its falling
on any given day are very remote. If
the question Of weekday were ignored
and only the day of the month were
taken into account, then, according to
the well-known meteorlo cycle, Easter
would fall on the same day once in nine
teen years with great regularity, for the.
error in this cycle is very small, as is
shown by the following:
Days Hrs. Min.
2s5 Iunatops require. ........"S,ssS le 81
isnipaS gr1ipoal nears sse; /;
The Church rule for determining
Faster is based upon this cycle, conse-
quently if we make a list OF the dates on
which the Paschal full moon OCCURS,
we shall find no two dates to be the
same for nineteen successive years,
but the twentieth will occur on
the same day of the month with the
first, when the whole series will
be repeated. However, it is not
with the day of the month SO much as
with the day of the week that we have
to deal, and here is where the difficulty
comes in, and the rarity of securing an
agreement of the day of the week and
the day of the month, necessary in the
case Of Easter, is best illustrated by the
following, the results of calculations
based on Ferguson's lunar tables from
1884 down to the present year:
In 1874 the first full moon after
March 2l fell on Sunday, April IS,
consequently the following Sunday,
April 25, was Easter Sunday. Nine
teen years afterwards, in 1852, the first
| full moon after March 81 again fell on
| April IS, but this time April is, instead
of being Sunday, was Wednesday, and
the following Sunday, four days later,
was the 22d instead of the 25th. Again
after nineteen years, in 1772, we find
similar dates, but April IS this year oc-
CURED on Friday, and the following
Sunday was the goth. In 1871 the Pas
chal full moon fell on Monday, April
| 19, and Easter consequently fell on the
25th, as it did in 1886. There figures
seem to indicate the occurrence of Easter
on any named date at regular inter-
walls of three meteoric cycles of once
every fifty-seven years, and such would
undoubtedly be the case were it not for
the fact that the question of leap-years
enters into the problem. Between 1884
and 1871 leap years occurred regularly
every four years, but after 1871 there
was period of eight years when none
occurred; 1896 was leap year and then
| there was no other until 1904, the de-
cree OF Pope Gregory having reduced
the year 1900 to 365 days. In con-
sequence of this, at the end of fifty-seven
years following 1891, in 1S48, when
Easter should have fallen on April 25,
it fell one day Short on April "a. In
1867, nineteen years after 1848, the
Paschal full moon fell on April IS,
which was Thursday, and the following
Sunday was the 21st. In this year the
Paschal full moon falls on Sunday,
April IS and Easter on April 25, and
then after the lapse of fifty-seven
\ years, namely, in 1913, it will fall on
the same day again.-St. Louis Globe
| Democrat.