Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-01-22
REV. DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S sun.
DAY SERMON.
Subject: "The SundiaI of Ahaz.n

TEXT: 'tAnd Isaiah the prophet cried
unto the Lord and He brought the sh1d
ol0 ten degrees backward by which it had
gone doWn an the dial Of 14haz"-I King
Xxx, l..
Here is the first cloc1 or watch or chro-
nometer 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 a sundial. Ahaz the king,
invented it. Between the hours given to
statecraft and the cares of Office he invented
something by which he could tell the time
of day. This sundial may have been a great
column, and when the shadow of that col
umu reached one point it was nine O'Clock
A. NJ. and when it reached another point it
was three O'Clock P. NJ, and all the hours and
half hours were 50 measured. Or it may
have been a flight OF stairs such as may now
be found in Hindostan and other old cOun-
tries, and when the shadow reached one step
1t was ten O'Clock A. NJ, or another step it
was four O'Clock p NJ, and likewise other
hours may have been indicated.
The clepsydra or water clock followed the
sundial, and the sandglass 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 part was burning he gave
himself to politics, 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 inventor. And the skill Of CEN
turtles of exquisite mechanism tolled at the
timepieces until the world had the Vick's
clock of the Fourteenth century and Huy-
ghens, the inventor, swung the first pendu-
lum and DR.. Hooke contrived the re-
coil escapement. And the ''endiess
chain" followed and the ratchet and
pinion lever" took its place, and
hnlo III {hn
stemwinder followed, 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. 1t
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 harvest to
harvest. Then the year was pronounced to
be three hundred and fifty-four days and
then three hundred and sixty days, and not
until long while after three hundred and
sixty-fve days. Then events were calcu-
lated from the foundation of Rome after
ward from the Olympic games. Then the
Babylonlans had cir measurement of the
year and the Romans theirs and
the Armenians theirs and the Hin
docs theirs. Chronology was busy
for centuries studying monuments
inscriptions, coins, mummies and astron-
Omy, trying to lay plan by which all
question of dates might be settled and
events put in their ri ht place in the pro-
cession Of the ages. But the chronologists
only heaped up mountain OF confusion and
bewilderment until in the sixth century
Dionysius Exiguus, a 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 have things dated backward and forward
from that great event. What a splendid
thought for the world. What mighty
thing for Christianity! It would have been
most natural to date everything from the
creation of the world. But I am glad
the chronologists could not too easily guess
how old the world was in order to get the
nations in the habit of dating from that
occurrence in its documents and his
tories. Forever fixed is it that all history is
to be dated with reference to the birth of
Christ. and, this matter settled, Hales, the
chief chronoIogist, declared that the world
was made five thousand four hundred and
eleven years before Christ, and the deluge
came three thousand one hundred and fifty
i've years before Christ, and all the illus
trious events of the nineteen centuries and
all the great events of all time to come have
been or shall be dated from the birth of
Christ. These things [ say that you may
know what watch is, what clock is what
an almanac Is, and learn to appreciate
through what tolls and hardships and per-
plexitleS the world came to its present con-
veniences and comforts, and to help you to
more res 2ectful consideration of that sun
dial OF AhaZ planted in my text.
We are told that Hezekiah, the king, was
diving of boil. 1t must have been one of
the wort kind of carbuncles, boil without
any central core and sometimes beautiful.
A fig was put upon it as poultice Hezekiah
lid not want to die then. His son, who was
to take the kingdom, had not yet been born,
and hezeSiah's death would have been the
death of the nation. So he prays for re-
covery and is told he will get we'll. But he
wants some miraculous sign to make him
sure OF 1t. He has the choice of having the
shadow on the sundial of Ahaz advance or
retreat. He replied it would not be so won
deTiuI 10 have the sun so down. for 1t al
ways Goes so down sooner or later.
He asks that it go backward. In
0tEer words let the day instead of going
on toward shutdown, turn and go toward
sunrise. see the invalid king bolstere1 up
and wrapped in blankets looking out Of the
window upon the sundial in the courtyard.
While he watches the shadow on the dial
the shadow begins to retreat. Instead OF
going on toward SIX O'Clock IN the evening
it goes back toward six o'clock in the morn
ing. The big poultice had been drawing for
some time, and sure enough the boil broke
apd Hezekiah got well. Now I expect YOU
will come on with your higher criticism
and try to explain this away and say it
was an optical deluSiOn OF HeZekiah, and the
shadow only seemed to go back or cloud
came over and it was uncertain which way
the shadow did go, and as Hezekiah expected
it to go back he took the action of
his own mind for the retrograde move
ment. No; the shadow went back on
all the dials of that land and other lands
Turn to ii Chronicles xxi, 81, and find
that away off in Babylon the mighty men of
the palace noticed the same phenomenon
And if you do not hike the Bible authority
turn over your copy of Herodotus and find
that away off in Egypt the people noticed