36 UNIVERSAL OR COSMIC TIME. 



No matter wlaat beautifully-written schemes any few very learned 

 men may propose in theii" 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 a minority. Yet Mr. S. 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. Biit 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 Mei'idian 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But, pray, who originally made the nations, God or Satan 1 Really 

 one would almost think the latter, when certain modern politicians 

 are so perpetually urging upon their countrymen the pi'opriety, 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. 



