FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  
from the heavens, at least in our great towns and cities. These offer many conveniences, but they remove us from not a few of the beauties which nature has to offer. And so it comes that, taking the population as a whole, there is perhaps less practically known of astronomy in England to-day than there was under the Plantagenets. A very few are astronomers, professional and amateur, and know immeasurably more than our forefathers did of the science. Then there is a large, more or less cultured, public that know something of the science at secondhand through books. But the great majority know nothing of the heavenly bodies except of the sun; they need to "look in the almanack" to "find out moonshine." But to simpler peoples the difference between the "light half" of the month, from the first quarter to the last quarter through the full of the moon, and the "dark half," from the last quarter to the first quarter, through new, is very great. Indian astronomers so divide the month to this day. In one passage of Holy Scripture, the description which Isaiah gives of the "City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel," there is a reference to the dark part of the month. "Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon (literally "month") withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." The parallelism expressed in the verse lies between the darkness of night whilst the sun is below the horizon, and the special darkness of those nights when the moon, being near conjunction with the sun, is absent from the sky during the greater part or whole of the night hours, and has but a small portion of her disc illuminated. Just as half the day is dark because the sun has withdrawn itself, so half the nights of the month are dark because the moon has withdrawn itself. The Hebrew month was a natural one, determined by actual observation of the new moon. They used three words in their references to the moon, the first of which, _chodesh_, derived from a root meaning "to be new," indicates the fact that the new moon, as actually observed, governed their calendar. The word therefore signifies the new moon--the day of the new moon: and thus a month; that is, a lunar month beginning at the new moon. This is the Hebrew word used in the Deluge story in the seventh chapter of Genesis; and in all references to feasts depending on a day in the month
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81  
82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

quarter

 

science

 

astronomers

 
references
 
Hebrew
 

nights

 

darkness

 

withdrawn

 
seventh
 

everlasting


Deluge
 

conjunction

 

horizon

 

expressed

 

parallelism

 

feasts

 

Genesis

 

mourning

 
whilst
 

chapter


depending

 

special

 

signifies

 

actual

 

observation

 

determined

 

natural

 

derived

 

chodesh

 

meaning


observed

 

governed

 
greater
 

absent

 

illuminated

 

calendar

 

portion

 
beginning
 
divide
 

professional


amateur

 
Plantagenets
 

astronomy

 

England

 
immeasurably
 
forefathers
 

public

 

secondhand

 

cultured

 

practically