THE SABBATH AT THE NORTH POLE.
By A. Smith
As an objection to the seventh-day Sabbath, among other arguments, it is asserted that in the polar regions darkness and light alternately prevail for months at a time, making it impossible to mark, by solar phenomena, the beginning or ending of the Sabbath, or any other day limited by Bible time; and, therefore, that the Sabbath cannot be properly kept anywhere. Admitting the premises to be correct, which we think we can disprove, the conclusion is greatly overdrawn, and indirectly impeaches the wisdom and justice of the Creator, who commanded that the Sabbath so limited should be kept holy. But it is not surprising that those who trample under foot the Sabbath of the Bible, and exalt in its stead a day devoted to the worship of a heathen god, should blasphemously charge the Lord with folly. Charity interposes, in extenuation, the plea that it is generally done ignorantly. But to the point in question. In latitudes where the sun is vertical at his meridian, day and night are always about equal in length; but as we ascend to higher latitudes in the northern hemisphere, after the vernal equinox, an increase in the length of the day is observable, the periods of sunset and sunrise gradually approaching each other, until, at the north pole, they meet, where the sun appears to move in a perfect circle around the horizon, remaining visible thereafter until the autumnal equinox. Now we will suppose that a Yankee farmer, with an enterprising spirit characteristic of his class, has appropriated for himself and family a tract of land, for a farm, (!) at the north pole. Having definitely located the place of the pole, he builds his house directly over it, in such a way that the center of his sitting-room, where his family most frequently assemble for social intercourse, and where, as in all Christian families, they would be most likely to be found after the toils of the week, waiting for the approach of the much-loved Sabbath, exactly coincides with the place of the pole. Now the whole question upon which the integrity of the Bible Sabbath hangs is limited to that one family, and to that little room; (!) for it must be admitted that from whatever side of the pole an observation is made, whether near to or remote from it, while the sun remained continually above the horizon, sunset would always occur when that luminary reached his lowest point of descent in the heavens, at the meridian directly on the opposite side of the pole from the point of observation. We will suppose that our Yankee, with characteristic shrewdness, being one of those easy-going, accommodating sort of Christians, has so arranged his fields with reference to a possible emergency, that he can have one on either side of the pole planted to the same kind of grain. His wheat is now ripe, and the white bear and reindeer are destroying it fearfully, and the Esquimaux are robbing his fine orchards of lemons and oranges. His work presses, and it is Friday afternoon, near the time which his good wife is so particular to observe as the beginning of the Sabbath. As the sun approaches that point in the heavens, our Yankee moves around his farm work with it, to another field, and labors on for several hours. In the meantime his wife, though accustomed to retire to bed several hours earlier on other days, from the side of the pole in her room where she is most accustomed to sit, and which she has chosen as the place from which to make her observations, and note the periods of morning, noon, and night, and to which her husband has tacitly assented and conformed, waits the approach of the sun to the point in the heavens on the opposite side of the pole, and with a hymn of praise and a prayer of thanksgiving she hails the approach of the loved Sabbath, and then retires to rest. About six o’clock in the morning, the husband comes in and wants to know if breakfast is ’most ready. “Have you been at work on the Sabbath?” says his wife. “How could I tell,” says her husband, “when the Sabbath began? The sun kept moving around in a circle.” “And now,” says his wife, “you call for your breakfast before it is night according to your practical reckoning. I feel concerned for your sanity, dear. You had better go to bed and sleep a few hours; it may be that your mind will be restored.” “Well,” says he, “if I can’t tell when the Sabbath begins, I can tell, without a mistake, when it is breakfast or dinner time.” “I think,” says his wife, “if you loved the Sabbath as much as you love your breakfast or dinner, you would have no trouble at all in determining the time of its beginning or close.” A. SMITH.