Connecticut western news., 1892-01-14
SUNDIAL OF AHAZ.
SERMON PREACHED BY REV. T. DE
 WITT TALMAGE, D. D.

The Flight of Tisae-God Rules tie Shad-
 ows-Daybreak on the Heights of the
 Mountain Tops-Fun Report of Re
 markabie Discourse.
 BROOKLYN, Jan. 10.-DT Talmage's sermon this morning was full Of brightness and good cheer. lie might have called ita receipt for happiness. The buoyancy and elasticity of tenn perament which characterize him were conspicuous throughout. and must have been inlparted to his hear CTS His text was II Kings XX, Ii, And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by whicl. it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz."
 Here is the first clock or watch or chropometar or timepiece of which the world has any knowledge. But it was a watch that did not tick and a clock that did not strike. 1t was sundial Ahaz, the king, invented it. Between the hours given to state craft and the cares of office he in- vented something by which he could tell the time Of day. This sundial may have been great column, and when the shadow of that column reached one point it was nine o'clock a. m.. and when it reached another point it was three o'clock p. m., and all the hours and half hours were so measured. Or it may have been a flight of stairs such as may now be found in Hindostan and other old countries. and when the shadow reached one step it was ten o'clock a. m., or another step 1t was four o'clock D. m.. and likewise other hours may have been indicated.
 TIME MEASURE.
 The clepsydra or water clock fol lowed the srlndial, and the sand glass followed the clepsydra. Then came the candle clock of Alfred the Great. and the candle was marked into three parts, and while the first part was burning he gave himself to religion. and while the second res.--t was burning he gave himself to poll tics, and while the third part was burning he gave himself to rest. After awhile came the wheel and weight clock, and Pope Sylvester the Second was its most important in ventor. And the skill of centuries of exquisite mechanism toiled at the timepieces until the world had the Vick's clock of the Fourteenth cen tury. and Huyghens, the inventor. swung the first pendulum, and Dr. Hooke contriVed the recoil escape ment.
 And the endless chain" followed, and the ratchet and pinion lever" took it's place. and the compensation balance and the stemwinder fol lowed, and now we have the buzz and clang of the great clock and watch factories of Switzerland and Germany and England and America turning out what seems to be the perfection of timepieces. It took the world six thousand years to make the present chronometer. So with the measurement of longer spaces than minutes and hours.
 Time was calculated from new moon to new moon; then from har- vest to harvest. Then the year was pronounced to be three hundred and fifty four days and then three hun dred and sixty days and not until long while after, three hundred and sixty five days. Then events were x,f Rome. afterward from the Olympic games. Then the Babylonians had their measurement of the year, and the Romans theirs, and the Armen- ians theirs. and the Hindoos theirs.
 Chronology was busy for centuries studying monuments, inscriptions. coins. rllmmies ani astronomy, try ing to lay plan by which all ques- tions of dates might be settled and events put il their right place in the procession of the ages. But the chronologis5s only heaped upa noun tain of confusion and bewilderment until in the Sixth century Dionysius Exig1us. Roman abbot, said, Let everything date from the birth at Bethlehem of the Lord Jesus Christ. the Saviour of the world"
 The abbot proposed to haze things dated backward and forward from that great event. What a splendid thought for the worldl What a mighty thing for Christianity! It would have been most natural to date everything from the creation of world But am glad tie chronolo- gists could not too easily guess how old tie world was in order to get the nations in the habit of dating from that occurrence in it's documents and histories.
 Forever fixed is ii that all history Is to be dated with reference to the birth of Christ. and. this matter set tied. Hales. the chief chronologist. declared that the world was made five thousand four hundred and eleven years heioge Christ, and the daluge came three thousand one hundred and fifty five years before Christ and all the illustious events of the last nineteen centuries and all the great events of all time to come have been CT shall be dated from the birth of Christ. These things l say thai you may know what 6 wat>h k. What a clock is. what an almanac is, and learn to ap- preciate through what tolls and hard ships and palplexities the world came to it's present conveniences and com forts. and to help you to more respect full consideration of the sundial of Ahaz planted ill my text.
 We are told that Hezekiah, the king, was dying of boil. It must have been one Of the worst kind of carbuncles. a boil without any cen