THE SABBATH. 315 



to a poetic myth a view which afterward fouud expression in the 

 vast reveries of Hugh Miller. But if this symbolic interpretation, 

 which is now generally accepted, be the true one, what becomes of 

 the Sabbath-day? It is absolutely without ecclesiastical meaning; 

 and the man who was executed for gathering sticks on that day must 

 be regarded as the victim of a rude legal rendering of a religious epic. 

 There were many minor offshoots of discussion from the great 

 central controversy. Bishop Horsley had defined a day " as consisting 

 of one evening and one morning, or, as the Hebrew words literally 

 import, of the decay of light and the return of it." But what then, 

 it was asked, becomes of the Sabbath in the Arctic regions, where 

 light takes six months to " decay," and as long to " return " ? Differ- 

 ences of longitude, moreover, render the observance of the Sabbath 

 at the same hours impossible. To some people such questions might 

 appear trifling ; to others they were of the gravest import. Whether 

 the Sabbath should stretch from sunset to sunset, or from midnight 

 to midnight, was also a subject of discussion. Voices, moreover, were 

 heard refusing to acknowledge the propriety of the change from 

 Saturday to Sunday, and the doctrine of Seventh-day observance 

 was afterward represented by a sect.* The earth's sphericity and 

 rotation, which had at first been received with such affright, came 

 eventually to the aid of those afilicted with qualms and difiiculties 

 regarding the respective claims of Saturday and Sunday. The sun 

 apparently moves from east to west. Suppose, then, we start on a 

 voyage round the world in a westerly direction. In doing so we sail 

 away, as it were, from the sun, which follows and periodically ovei*- 

 takes us, reaching the meridian of our ship each succeeding day some- 

 what later than if we stood still. For every 15 of longitude traversed 

 by the vessel the sun will be exactly an hour late ; and after the ship 

 has traversed twenty-four times 15, or 360, that is to say, the entire 

 circle of the earth, the sun will be exactly a day behind. Here, then, 

 is the expedient suggested by Dr. Wallis, F. R. S., Savilian Professor 

 of Geometry in the University of Oxford, to quiet the minds of those 

 in doubt regarding Saturday observance. He recommends them to 

 make a voyage round the world, as Sir Francis Drake did, " going out 

 of the Atlantic Ocean westward by the Straits of Magellan to the 

 East Indies, and then from the east, returning by the Cape of Good 

 Hope homeward, and let them keep their Saturday-Sabbath all the 



* Theophilus Braboume, a sturdy Puritan minister of Norfolk, whom Cox regards 

 as the founder of this sect, thus argued the question in 1628: "And now let me pro- 

 pound unto your choice these two days : the Sabbath-day on Saturday or the Lord's day 

 on Sunday ; and keep whether of the twain you shall in conscience find the more safe. 

 If you keep the Lord's day, but profane the Sabbath-day, you walk in great danger 

 and peril (to say the least) of transgressing one of God's eternal and inviolable laws 

 the fourth commandment. But, on the other side, if you keep the Sabbath-day, though 

 you profane the Lord's day, you are out of all gunshot and danger, for so you transgress 

 no law at all, since neither Christ nor his apostles did ever leave any law for it." 



