Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/414

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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��so till the Gregorian calendar was adopted.

Pope Gregory XIII ordered that ten days be suppressed from the cal- endar, so that the nth should be the 2 1 st of the month. This was done by making the 5th of October, 1582, the 15th, which would bring the equi- nox on the same day on which it fell in the year 325, when the first Council of Nice was held, which would leave the celebration of Easter and the other feasts of the church, that are regulated by that event, to stand upon the old bases, and would require less new calculations or changes. The ecclesiastical calendar is based upon a compound of lunar and solar calcu- lations, giving rise to the distinctions between the movable and immovable feasts, and the reasons for the ob- servance of various holydays, feasts, &c. But it is not our purpose to en- large in this direction.

Gregory not only made such chang- es as rectified the errors in the com- putation for the time being, but in order to reform the error in the Julian intercalation, which was now found to amount to three days in about four hundred years, and to prevent a re- currence of the same variation again, it was provided that the intercala- tions should be omitted on all the centenary years excepting those that are multiples of 400. According to the Gregorian rule, therefore, every year is a leap year which is divisible by four without a remainder, except- ing the centennial years, which are only leap years when divisible by four hundred without remainder, or by four after omitting the two cyphers. Thus the year 1600 was a leap year — the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are common years — while the year 2000 will be a leap year, and so on. But it is found that this will make the av- erage civil year a trifle too long, ex- ceeding the true solar year, according to some authorities, by about twenty-six seconds — by other authorities much less. This will amount to one day in somewhere from 3000 to 5000 years,

��so that whoever may be living some thirty or fifty centuries from now may expect to have one day omitted in the regular count. Perhaps the year 6000, when it arrives, which, under the Gregorian rule, would be a leap year, may be made a common year by omitting to add the odd day to Feb- ruary in that year. But perhaps we may safely trust to posterity to look after that matter.

Up to the year 1600 the difference between the old style and the new was ten days, but the year 1600 being a leap year under both systems, the dif- ference continued to be ten days only to the year 1 700, which would have been a leap year by the old or Julian, but was not so by the new or Grego- rian, rule. This made the difference eleven days after that year up to the year 1800. Since the year 1800 an- other day is to be added to the dif- ference between the old style and the new, making twelve days now, and after the year 1900 the difference will be thirteen days.

The Gregorian rule was early adopt- ed in most Catholic countries, and also in many that were Protestant. Scotland made the change in 1600. But many Protestant countries hesi- tated, not wishing to follow the Ro- man church too nearly, even when they knew she was right. But in 1 75 1 an act of Parliament was passed pro- viding that in 1752 the change should be made, and eleven days were ac- cordingly dropped from the calendar to make it agree with the Gregorian rule. This act also became the law of the colonies in America. This was the great change in this country and in England, from the old to the new style.

But the change was more than this. Up to this time, since the twelfth cen- tury, as we have seen, the year com- menced in England on the 25th of March, and the same was true in the Provinces. This act of 1 75 1 provid- ed, also, that, beginning with 1752, the year should begin with January. It was customary to write dates that

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