The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1922-01-10

! peror, the name of the counsel anC
the tax period then current. Blu
only four years later the last consu
! was elected the office and the name
! became shadows.
! Emperors and consuls have count
ed for nothing against the name ot
| Jesus. By 525 that name haC
stolen into the Imagination of the
world 1t had stamped itself o.
! literature. Greek games, Romar
Consulates, Emperors, Conque1ur:
vanished like hurrying phantonl5
Why should time be dated from the
founding of city when that city had
, lost both empire and fame? So a
D. took the place of A. U. c., only
one name survived; only one figur%
was visible across wide spaces OF
persisted time. That name and that
figure represented the energies which
were moulding human society to q
new pattern; and as visible and
concrete reflex so that fact, thu
worlds time began to be reckoned
from the birth of Jesus Christ. AL
that had gone before, all that had
happened besides, no longer count
ed? By a deep unconscious, inar-
ticulate, yet irresistible instinct the
world recognized and recorded OIL
it's almanac the true starting point
of life
Many attempts have been made
to give another point of departure
for recorded time. La Place the as
tronomer proposed to give stability
and dignity to human chronology by
linking it with the stars. Some four
thousand years before Christ tie
major axis of the earth's orbit coin
cided with the line of the equinoxes;
in A. D. 1850 they were at right
angles to each other. Human tine
LaPlace argued ought not to be ad-
justed to the trivial events and VAN
ishing names of earthly history, but
to the march of the heavenly bodies.
Here he argued in the depths of
space in the group of the planets, it
was possible to find magnificent
and unchanging mark to which all
human calendars might be adjusted.
Why not make that moment from
which the whole earth should count
its time that at which the lone of the
equinoXes is at right angles 10 the
axis of the earth's orbit But
science has not yet related her
almanac and never will.
Islam made broken mark ON the
calendar. MOhammedan nations
count their time from the Hegria, A.
D. 622. The Moslem almanac was
drawn up by the Caliph Omar in A.
d. $40, only eighteen years after the
Flight; and he imposed his calendar
on all the followers of .MohammeG
by the logic OF the sword. Time was
for them related by Force; still the
Heglra in confined as a time measure
to dying creed and to small
cluster of half-civilized races.
The most notable attempt is mod
arn days to find a new starting point
for civilized time was that under
taken by France in 1898. The Rev
Olution was to be counted as tna
year one; and that ambitious Caien-
1ar had many things in its favor 1t
conceded with a new
political era; and since Revolution
lad great passions and forces behind
t, and great ideals before it, the new
late marked the beginning of a new
IRA. The world of European poll
les has never been the same since
he French Revolution and never
will be. The calendar enacted BY
he French Assembly had thus some
historic justification and it was
ldOrned with all the artistic graces
hat the lively French Imagination
ould invent. Its months had poeti-
al names. Its festivals bore high
ounding labels as Virtue, Genius.
1abour, Rewards. The Revolution
alendar fell with the cause it re-
1t lasted Just thirteen