The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1892-04-14
HOW TO TELL iT.
A Simple Explanation OF tho Changing OF
the Easter Date.

the Easter Date.
People that fully understand the re.
ligious significance of Easter know, of
course. something about the change
fulness of the date, but only a small
percentage Ct them perhaps could sat-
isfactorily explain the matter. If you
should ask ten intelligent people how
far the Easter date can 5.ry the
chances are that not one would be able
to answer You correctly without first
consulting hook of reference.
The fsct is that the date varies more
than month, though many years
1t is possible for Easter to come as
early as the ed Of March, and it may
come as late as the 25th of April. Five
years ago, in 1886. Easter fell on the
25th of April, but it will not again
come so late as that until the youngest
reader of these lines shall be old
enough to be grandparent-in 1943.
The moons monthly journey around
the earth is the foundation of the
eccentric Easter dates, just as the
earth's annual excursion around the
sun causes the trouble that necessitatea
leap years.
Easter is simply a Christian adapta-
tion of the Jewish Passover. The word
Easter dates back further than the
time of the religious observations that
now characterize it. The Anglo-Saxon
name of April was Eastermonath,
meaning the month of the spring morn
ing or the sun warmth, which awak-
ened nature from its winter torpidity.
The early Christians adopted this idea
of natures spring awakening to typefy
the resurrection of the Saviour, just as
the Jews used it to commemorate
events connected with the escape of
their people from Egyptian bondage.
But the antipathy of the Christians
toward the Jews in those early days
led them to make an attempt to have
the Easter observances always fall on
dates other than those that commence
rated the Passover. The system that
we now have for fixing the Easter date
is due to that attempt. After as much
thought and calculation as were given
to the tinkering of the calendar COM
plete plan was adopted, and here is an
attempt to make it ineligible in a few
words:
1t was determined, in the first place,
that Easter must invariably fall on the
first Sunday after the fourteenth day
OF the moon that happens to be reign
ing at vernal equinox time. Then it
was declared that the date of the equi-
nox should be arbitrarily made March
~, although the equinox really comes
sometimes a little earlier or little
later than the 21st. For example, sup
pose the equinox moon is just fourteen
days old on the 21st of March and that
this day falls on Saturday-then the
next day, Sunday, would fill the con-
dition noted above, and consequently
be Easter.
Of course you can readily perceive
that SO early an Easter date can very
rarely occur. The Christian Easter
was originally sort of thanksgiving
observance lasting eight days. This
conformed somewhat to the length of
time devoted by pagans to their spring
festivities, and approached the dura
ton of the Jewish paschal observances.
The eight-day period was afterward
cut down to three days, after that to
two, and finally it became. as we have
it now, a day commemorative of the
reSurrectiOn.-NY Y. Press,