Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/210

 202 DOMINICAL LETTER DOMINICANS by the English ; and it was ceded to England by France in 1763. It was recaptured by the French in 1778, and restored to England in 1783. Its government is administered by a lieutenant governor, aided by an executive council of 7 members, and a legislative assem- bly of 14 members, of whom 7 are nominated by the crown and 7 elected by the people. Capital, Roseau, on the S. W. side of the isl- and ; pop. about 5,000. DOMINICAL LETTER (Lat. dominica, the Lord's), the letter used in the calendar to de- note Sunday for a given year. The council of Nice (325) established the rule that Easter Sun- day should be the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after March 21. For the purpose of determining when Easter falls, and for other similar problems con- cerning the day of the week and the day of the year, it was early found convenient to place the first seven letters of the alphabet in succession against the days of the months, putting A to Jan. 1, and repeating the seven letters as often as necessary until Dec. 31. The letter which falls against the first Sunday in January will fall against every Sunday in the year, and this is the dominical letter for that year, unless it be leap year ; and then, as Feb. 29 as well as March 1 is marked D, the dominical letter for the last ten months of the year will be the preceding letter of the alphabet. Finding the dominical letter will enable one to find what day of the week a given date in the year is. But the dominical letter, being known for any one year, can be found for any other, by simply remembering that an ordinary year is 52 weeks and 1 day, a leap year 52 weeks and 2 days, so that the dominical letter will go backward from G toward A, one letter for a common year and two for a leap year. This gives rise to an arithmetical rule which may be thus expressed : To the number of the year add one quarter of itself, neglecting fractions, and divide the sum by 7; then for the 19th century subtract the remainder from 8, or, if it is 0, from 1, and the new remainder will in- dicate the place of the dominical letter in the alphabet ; for the 18th century subtract, from 7; for the 17th century, and back to 1582, the year in which the Gregorian calendar went into operation, subtract from 6, or if the remainder is 6, from 13 ; for dates previous to 1582 subtract from 3, or if the remainder is 3 or more, from 10. But the dominical let- ter thus obtained for a leap year belongs to the time after Feb. 29, and for the preceding two months the dominical letter was the suc- ceeding letter in the alphabet. This new re- mainder is also the date of the first Sunday in January for that year. The same date in February will fall on Wednesday; in March, on Wednesday ; in April, on Saturday, &c. ; as may be seen from the fact that the first days of tin* 12 months have annexed to them in the calendar the initials of the words : At Dover Dwell George Brown, Esquire, Good Christo- pher Finch, And David Friar. For example, the day of the week on which New York was incorporated, June 12, 1665, is thus found: (1665+41 6)-5-7=297, with a remainder of 2; and, it being the 17th century, 62=4, which shows the dominical letter for that year to have been D. Then, as June begins with E, June 1, 1665, was Monday, and the 12th was Fri- day. President Barnard of Columbia college gives the following rule for finding the domin- ical letter: Give to the letters A, C, E, G, in which order the dominical letters return with the leap year centurial in every succession of ftmr centurial years, the numerical values which correspond to their places in the alphabet, 1, 3, 5, 7; find in this series the number cor- responding to the given century, and call this the centurial ; multiply the twenties of the in- complete century by 3, and call the product the vigesimal ; multiply the fours in the excess of twenties by 2, and call the product the qua- ternial ; multiply the final remainder by 6, and call the product the residual. If the sum of the numbers thus obtained is 7 or less, it is the numerical value of the dominical letter ; if it is greater than 7, subtract 7 as often as may be necessary to reduce it to 7 or below, and the final result is the dominical letter. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. See SANTO DOMINGO. DOMINICANS, Order of Preachers, or Friars Preachers (Lat. Fratres Prcedicatores ; Fr. Freres-Precheurs), a- Rom an Catholic monastic order, founded by St. Dominic. (See DOMINIC.) When in 1215 Dominic and his six companions took up their abode in Toulouse, in the house of Pierre Cellani, they had agreed to wear the habit and follow temporarily the rule of the canons regular of St. Augustine. This rule and habit had been given by St. Norbert, in 1121, to the community founded by him at Premon- tr6, which spread so rapidly throughout Eu- rope. St. Norbert aimed at uniting the ob- servances of monastic life with the office of preaching and the cure of souls. To the Au- gustinian rule, as it existed before him, he added several regulations tending to stricter poverty and greater severity of life. The rule of St. Norbert, so modified as to make it still more austere, was that which Dominic and his companions deliberately chose in Prouille in 1216, and which was approved byHonoriusIII. in his two bulls of Dec. 22 of the same year. The new features given by St. Dominic to the rule of Premontre 1 may be thus described : 1. As the order of preachers has for its object the salvation of souls by preaching and other priestly ministrations, as well as by the exam- ple of a holy life in the preacher, the superior of every convent has discretionary power to dispense from the common rules and obser- vances, which may occasionally prove obstacles to the end in view. Thus, where fasting or abstinence is incompatible with preaching, teaching in public, necessary study, or the fa- tigues of a missionary life, the superior is em- powered to grant a relaxation ; the rule of