36 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 
No matter what beautifully-written schemes any few very learned 
men may propose in their closets, the world at large, who gain their 
daily bread by toil of some kind or another, will insist on having, 
observing, or arranging their working days mainly according to the 
Sun, in their own locality or Meridian. Local time will never there- 
fore be dispensed with amongst mankind at large. And when, for 
the convenience chiefly of the travelling portion of the community, 
the local time of one has to be compared with the local time of many 
other places, and can be accomplished most easily by one of them 
being considered superior to, and made the Prime of, the others, the 
Meridian locality of the greatest number of mankind is certain to be 
most regarded, and will assuredly prevail, and become the chief of 
all, as any opinion of a majority invariably in the end overcomes 
that of aminority. Yet Mr. 8. F’s proposed Prime Meridian for all 
mankind is in a part of the world where there are either no inhabi- 
tants at all, or, if a few do reside near one end of the line, they are a 
miserable driblet of wretched Kamschatkan savages, prowling with - 
difficulty for food over snowy wildernesses under the doubtful rule of 
Russia ! 
Mr. Sandford Fleming seems to know perfectly well that in making 
such a proposition he is running full tilt against common sense and uni- 
versal experience. But then he urges the plea of national jealousies 
being aroused if the Prime Meridian were to pass through the coun- 
try of one powerful European nation more conveniently for its in- 
habitants than for those of another; so he does them all equally a 
mischief by making his Meridian convenient to no one ; and proudly 
holds that the grand object now of advanced civilization is to consult 
in everything the utmost development of inter-nationality, or the 
breaking down of all the ancient bounds which have hitherto divided 
one nation from another, and in fact formed them into nations. 
But, pray, who originally made the nations, God or Satan? Really 
one would almost think the latter, when certain modern politicians 
are so perpetually urging upon their countrymen the propriety, nay 
the very virtue of their doing all they can to destroy those primeval 
distinctions, and remove them from the face of the earth. 
Yet the Bible, which in this country we all profess to believe, tells 
us in language perfectly unmistakable, that the nations were a 
directly Divine institution, enacted by God himself ; ; wherefore, woe 
indeed to whoever attempts to abolish their distinctions. Some men, 
no doubt, have tried, but then who, and what manner of persons were 
they ? 
Chiefly members of the dread International Commune which tran- 
scends all mere radical politicians in seeking even by blood and fire to 
destroy most completely the nations, and to form all mankind into 
one vast, headless society. And that said Commune is utterly 
atheistic, without any notion of a God. 
