266 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



time. Considering that the weather warnings relate, 

 not indirectly, to the saving of life and property, it 

 does seem as though, apart from the practical absurdity 

 of the regulation, there was something specially 

 unchristian about it. For though Christ, in his 

 teaching respecting the Sabbath, made no direct 

 reference to telegraphic communications respecting the 

 weather, He showed clearly enough what He would have 

 said about them had the Pharisees raised the question. 

 If * one sheep,' He said, * fall into a pit, will ye not lay 

 hold on it, and lift it out ? ' * How much is a man 

 better than a sheep?' He continued. Obviously He 

 would have extended the argument had occasion arisen 

 by asking, * How much is the crew of a ship more 

 worth than one man? And how much are many 

 endangered crews more worth than one crew ? ' 



Nature, indeed, as it seems to me, answers for us 

 all questions concerning the seventh day's rest. 

 Sabbatarians lay great stress on the assumed fact that 

 the rest is found good for body and brain a fact 

 which, if proved, would mean little more than that 

 long-continued habit has made such rest a necessity. 

 But they pay little attention to the fact that nature 

 knows no seventh day's rest. The earth does not 

 pause in her orbital motion round the sun, nor the 

 moon on her motion round the earth. The tides and 

 currents of the ocean continue their motion, and the 

 waves rest no more on the Sabbath than on week-days. 

 Winds blow and rains fall on that day as on the rest. 

 All forms of life, vegetable and animal, continue un- 



