g8 BROWN : 



sundial. The simple facts any one may find in such easily 

 accessible books as have been made for that purpose. But 

 perhaps you will not be ill pleased to find yourselves spared 

 the trouble of collating and consulting. 



The existence of any record, however rude, of the lapse of 

 time implies some knowledge of the heavenly bodies and their 

 motions : since b}'^ these only can time be measured : a state- 

 ment which, being analyzed, reduces itself to this that : — to 

 all the inhabitants of earth there has been vouchsafed but one 

 time-keeper, the earth herself as she rolls on her axis. For 

 the motions of the heavenly bodies, just spoken of are but 

 apparent results of the earth's movement. 



The earth has no influence upon time, none whatever. She 

 marks time ; no more, while clocks and sundials record, with 

 greater or less approximate correctness what she proclaims, 

 daily and nightly, to her observing children. 



Sundials have, as matter of course, been known from far 

 back in antiquity. For since man was created there have 

 been weary lands and the shadow of great rocks in the same. 

 x\nd how is it supposable that one, lying under such a shadow 

 and finding it constantly and regularly moving over and away 

 from him could exclude the idea that this niuvenient might be 

 made use of ? 



So that 700 years before the Christian era is a compara- 

 tively modern date ; and I expect to be understood at once by 

 educated persons when I mention the Sign of Hezekiah 

 which was wrought about that time. 



The account of this occurrence, given in more than one 

 place in the Bible, is succinct and majestic. 



King Hezekiah is " sick unto the death '" and the prophet 

 Isaiah bids him set his house in order, for he must die. But 

 the king cries unto the Lord and the prayer is heard. Fifteen 

 more years of life are promised, and a sign is spoken of. 

 " Behold I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which 

 is gone down in the sundial of Ahaz ten degrees backward. 

 So the sun relir'ned ten degrees by which it was gone down." 



