268 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



or of Susannah, or of Tobit and his Faithful Dog, or 

 other apocryphal narratives; for the Books of Mac- 

 cabees are good history. When the soldiers of Antio- 

 chus attacked, on the Sabbath, those who had fled to 

 the wilderness, these would neither fight nor hide, 

 because to do so they must have lifted stones. They 

 were accordingly slain with their wives and children to 

 the number of a thousand. On this the rest said, 

 every man to his neighbour, < If we shall all do as our 

 brethren have done, and not fight against the heathens 

 for our lives, they will quickly root us out of the earth.' 

 So they determined, very wisely, to change their tactics, 

 saying, ' Whosoever shall come up against us to fight 

 on the Sabbath-day, we will fight against him.' 

 Pursuing this plan, 'they slew the sinners in their 

 wrath, and the wicked in their indignation.' Our 

 meteorologists would do well to follow the example of 

 Matthias and his Mends. They have tried the experi- 

 ment of omitting Sunday storm-warnings, but Sunday 

 storms have not ceased. Every meteorologist should, 

 therefore, say to his neighbour, 'Whatsoever winds shall 

 threaten to blow on the Sabbath-day, we will telegraph 

 news of the same to the nations round about.' After 

 all, though we are unquestionably in need of the anti- 

 Judaic missionaries suggested by Herbert Spencer, we 

 call ourselves Christians, and if the Founder of 

 Christianity * made clay ' on the Sabbath-day, and that, 

 too, when He might, as Christians believe, have 

 restored the blind to sight with a word (or on the 

 morrow), our Meteorological Office might not be un- 



