"
"Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank."
"The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability,
suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of
measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have
reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and
the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary
subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great
stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called
forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such
subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously
to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all
invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence."
"Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other
divisions--weeks, for example."
"The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to
revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of
rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate
the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
"Then there are months."
"The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in
conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals
of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes.
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