In the Question Chair

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 28, 1901

In the Question Chair

[Designed for the consideration of such questions as will be of interest and profit to the general reader. All correspondents should give their names and correct post-office address, that queries not replied to here may be answered by mail.]

800.—SUNSET IN NORWAY.

How do people in Norway, in the long night of winter, which continues for weeks, and in the more northern portions for months, know when the Sabbath begins? E. C. G., Sigourney, Iowa.

Ans.—The Sabbath begins at the setting of the sun; and right here is the supposed difficulty: What is the setting of the sun in such a region as the one referred to, and how does one know there when the sun does set? In the summer of 1896, it was our privilege to visit the North Cape, the northernmost point in Norway, which gave us an opportunity to communicate with some dwelling in the highest inhabitable northern latitudes, as to their method of preserving their calendar, and keeping their daily reckoning of time. On that visit, we had the opportunity of seeing the “midnight sun,” that is, of watching the sun pass the midnight hour, and not go below the horizon. But was there any difficulty then in marking the motion and position of the sun?—Not the least. One revolution of the earth on its axis, with the apparent motion of the sun around the earth, marks the passage of a day; and every revolution thus accomplished can be as accurately marked there as it is here; in the summer, when the sun comes to its lowest point, though it does not disappear, a revolution of the earth is accomplished; and in the winter, when the appearance of the heavens shows that the sun is nearest to the horizon, though it does not appear above it, the revolution of the earth is just as clearly marked; and that is all that need be known. When the people in Norway were told that there were people in these lower latitudes who wondered how days could be kept in those northern regions, and asked how it could be done, they laughed such a question to scorn. There is not the least difficulty. Every traveler in the frigid zone keeps his diary as accurately as those traveling in the sunny regions of the south.