'The Yardsticks of Time'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 2, 10 January 1907, Page 33

'The Yardsticks of Time'

In Russia the new- y eat -did not begin until January 7. In Turkey it will begin' on March 7. February 5 will he the first day of the Chinese" and Jap-

anese year.

With the Jews the world over it is ,

movable date, • shifting between September 5 and October 5. But all peoples unite fn> agreeing " that the period covered by a single procession of the seasons

shall be called a year. It took the astronomers.several centuries to discover how long this period is, yet, whatever date was selected, the beginning of a new year was marked by ceremonial observances, usually oF~ a religious nature. . -_ - Because the year is the period occupied by certain natural phenomena, which, recur wifh periodic regularity, it has never been seriously proposed that -the-cal-endar should -be based on the metric system, even # the French revolutionists did have a week ten days' long. They gave ib up, however,, when it came to applying the decimal system to the day or the month or the year.

lhe yardsticks of time (says the ' Companion ') have been arbitrarily fixed by nature itself. The seasons -might have progressed through' their round in twelve days instead of twelve months, and the ' day" '"might' *" have been 'one hour rather than twenty-four "hours long. Men -have wisely accepted the situation. The word ' day,' however, as popularly used, has come to stand lor the period- of work" in the light, in contrast V*itb \he cTarkness. 'The burden and heat of the -day ' ' the cares that infest the day ' are forms of expression which indicate this

Life is measured by years, t not by centuries or decades—decimal measures— or by months of days— lunar y and solar measures. " Dim with . the mist of years ' . was Byron's pathetic • expressive phrase. Literature is „-,•? Sl ™ llar references to this unit in the measure of life. To the child a year is an eternity ; to the aged, it as but an hour's stage on. the" journey to that eternity where" time is no more " '

' The publication of an advertisement in a Catholic . paper shows that the advertiser not only desires ' the patronage of Catholics, but pays them the compliment of seeking it through the medium of their own religious journal.2 So says an esteemed and wide-awake American contemporary. A word to bhe~wise is sufficient.'