Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1892-01-16
LIES CLOCKS.
Or. Talmage Discourses on the His
tory of Time Measuring.
The Lords Wonderful Power Bright and
Dark Days blessings From Adver-
Notwithstanding Toward
Happiness.

In late sermon AT BROOKLYN heV' IL
De Witt Talmage took his text from II.
Kings, XIX. ii: "And Isaiah, the
prophet, cried unto the Lord; and he
brought the shadow ten degrees back
ward by which It had gone down in the
dial of Ahaz" DR.. Talmage said:
Here is the first clock, or watch, or
thermometer, or time-piece OF which the
world has any knowledge. But it was
a watch that did not tick and clock
that did not strike. 1t was sun dial.
Ahaz, the king, invented it. Between
the hours given to statccraft and the
cares of Office he invented something by
which he could tell the time OF day.
This sun dial may have been d great
column, and when the shadow OF that
column reached one point it was nine
o'clock q. M, and when 1t reached an
other point it was three o'clock p. m,
and all the hours and half hours were
so measured. Or it may have been q
flight of stairs such as may now be
found in Hindustan and other old
countries, and when the shadow
reached one step it was ten o'clock q.
m, or another step it was four o'clock
p. m, and likewise other hours may
have been indicated.
The clepsydra or water clock fol-
lowed the sun dial and the sand glass
followed the clepsydra. Then came
the candle clock of Alfred the Great
and the candle was divided 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 i'm
portant inventor.
And the skill of centuries Of exquisite
mechanism toiled at the time-pieces
until the world had the Vick's clock OF
the fourteenth century, and Huyghens,
the inventor, swung the first pendulum,
and DIR. Hooke contrived the recoil es-
.capement And the ''endless chain"
followed, and the ratchet and pinion
lever" took its place, and the compen-
sation balance and the stem winder
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
&imc-pieces. 1t took the world 6,0OO
years to make the present chrome
meter.
So with the measurement of longer
spaces than minutes aud 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 ffty-four days and
then three hundred and sixty days and,
not until O long while after, three
hundred and sixty-fve days Then
events were calculated from the found
alton of Rome, afterward from the
Olympic games. Then the Babylonians
had their measurement of the years,
and the Romans theirs, and the Armen-
Sans theirs. Chronology was busy for
centuries studying monuments, inscrip-
tons, coins, mummies and astronomy,
trying to lay a plan by which all ques-
ton of dates might be settled and
events put in their right place In the
procession of the ages. But the chron.
..ologists only heaped up mountain OF
confusion and bewilderment until in
the sixth century Dlonysius Exiguus a
Roman abbott, said: "Let everything
date from the birth at Bethlehem OF
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour OF
the world" The abbott proposed to
nave things dated backward aud for
ward from that great event
We are told that Hezekiah, the king,
was dying of boil A fig was put
upon it as a poultice. Hezekiah did
not want to die then. His son, who
was to take the kingdom, had not yet
been born, and Hezekiah's death would
have been the death of the nation. So
he prays for recovery 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 sun dial OF AhaZ ad-
vance or retreat He replied 1t would
mot be so wonderful to have the sun go
down, for it always goes down sooner
or later. He asks that 1t go backward.
In other words. let the day instead of
going on toward shutdown turn and go
toward sunrise.
] see the invalid king bolstered up
and wrapped in blankets looking out
of the window upon the sun dial in the
court yard. While he watches the
shadow on the dial the shadow begins
TO retreat Instead of going on toward
six o'clock in the evening 1t goes back
toward six o'clock in the morning. The
lRg poultice had been drawing for some
time, and, sure enough, the boil broke
and Hezekiah got well
At the opening Of the new year peo-
ple are moralizing on the fight of time.
Won all feel that You are moving on