20 
ANNUAL ADDRESS. 
the sister kingdoms of Israel and Judah; their conquest and 
carrying away into captivity. Those critics are therefore 
right who assign Job and this portion of Isaiah to the period 
before the captivities, and the three names come to ns as the 
indications, not of a Babylonian science of astronomy learned 
by the Jews during their exile, but of a Hebrew astronomy 
destroyed by the unspeakable disaster of the captivity. And 
when you come to think about it, the complete conquest of a 
country by a ruthless invader, wiping “Jerusalem as a man 
wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down,” is 
more likely to destroy the science of a nation than to 
inaugurate it. 
The science of a nation could hardly fail to go down in ruin 
under such a catastrophe. The life of its religion was more 
deep seated and survived. The Jews came back from exile 
devoted to two things — to monotheism, and to the observance 
of the Sabbath. The first they had possessed before the over- 
throw, but had held it lightly until they had learned devotion 
to it in the furnace of affliction. Had they possessed the 
Sabbath also before their captivity ? Or had they learned it 
from their conquerors, as some now assert that they did ? 
Hot from their conquerors. For whilst the Babylonian 
week and Sabbaths were dependent strictly upon the lunar 
month, and were therefore astronomical, the Jewish week was 
a “ free ” week, independent of month or year ; that is, of any 
natural division of time. And history shows us that it has 
been the Jewish week that has had the power of asserting 
itself, not the Babylonian. Ho other race adopted from the 
Babylonians their week or Sabbaths ; but the Jews, though 
conquered and enslaved, succeeded in imposing, to no small 
degree, the observance of their Sabbath, both upon the Greeks 
and the Romans. Indeed, the week, both of the Christians 
and of the Mahommedans, is derived directly from the Jews, 
though with a change of the day of observance. 
Further, the Babylonian Sabbath differed from that of the 
Jews, not only by the manner in which its incidence was 
regulated, but also in the way in which it was observed. The 
Jewish Sabbath was a day of rejoicing and complete rest from 
work. The Babylonian was only marked in the ritual of court 
and temple ; it was no day of general rest. This we know ; 
for Professor Schiaparelli has examined the dating of nearly 
3,000 Babylonian deeds and contracts, and has found that 
business was transacted as freely on tire Sabbaths as on other 
days. The Babylonians could not possibly give to the Jews 
