Leap Year by F. D. Starr

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 19, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 32.

Leap Year.

By F. D. Starr

RECENTLY in conversation with a traveling evangelist, a rather novel objection was presented against the seventh-day Sabbath. Said the objector: "It is foolish to suppose that we can tell which is the seventh day, when every fourth year we add an extra day, making the month of February one day longer than it ordinarily is, thus so completely confusing the dates that no one can tell anything about the correct reckoning!"

Novel as the position is, it is just as tenable as some other similar positions. It is stated by some that we cannot tell anything about which is the true seventh day from creation, because that several hundred years ago the Pope of Rome changed the reckoning of time from old style to new style, leaving out ten days by calling the next day after October 4, 1582, October 15, instead of October 5. We ask in all candor, what had this to do with the reckoning of the days of the week? Just as much as adding on an extra day to the year once in four years, affects the reckoning of the days of the week. The objection in regard to leap year is ridiculous in the extreme. To give February twenty-nine days instead of twenty-eight, does not make Sunday, or any other day of the week, come any earlier or any later than it otherwise would. Whether the day were to be called February 29, or March 1, would have nothing to do with its position in the cycle. If it were Monday in one case it would be Monday in the other. Every person can certainly see that fact.

Now what would be the effect if we should make the month of February one day shorter, allowing it only twenty-seven days? It would not affect the week at all, as all can very readily see. If such changes do not affect the month of February, they certainly would not affect the month of October. Suppose the month of October, 1582, had been made one day shorter, having only thirty days allowed to it, would the week be affected by it? Certainly not. If it would not affect it to take off one day, then it would not to take off ten. If

the next day after October 21, had been called November 1, the week would not have been affected by this numbering, neither was it affected by calling the day after the 4th the 15th, any more than the week is now affected by the extra day in leap year. Yet a good many people who are apparently very conscientious, say that for this very reason they cannot keep the Sabbath. They say the argument is perfectly clear, that the seventh day is the correct Sabbath, and if they only knew which is the seventh day they would keep it, but on account of the change Pope Gregory XIII. introduced in 1582, they cannot be sure which is the true seventh day. If the Pope had not meddled with the matter, there would be no difficulty.

To all such conscientious persons who would keep God's holy Sabbath if this difficulty were removed, we have the happy announcement to make that there is a way of relief. The Greek Church paid no attention to the Pope's decree, and so throughout Russia the old style of reckoning is still observed. The matter there stands just as it did previous to 1582. All that is necessary to do, is to adopt the style of Russia where change of reckoning has never been introduced, and all confusion on this account, has consequently been avoided. If there is no other way to do, to enable one to keep the plain command of God, then by all means let him adopt the old style, and, when having done that, and finding out that the order of the days of the week is the very same that it is now, and here, doubtless the earnest seeker after the truth would be willing to admit that the change in the reckoning of the days of the month has not affected in the least the days of the week.

When asked whether he did not rebuke people for working on Sunday, our objector answered promptly in the affirmative, and his defense for so doing was that since the resurrection of our Lord, Christians have had a new reckoning, viz., Anno Domini, in connection with which the first day observance is firmly established. But as to how that leap year could affect the observance of the seventh day, and not the first, our friend did not pause to explain. Here was one upon whose head the hands of the bishop had been laid to set him apart to be an instructor of the people, but behold a sample of the "wine" (false doctrine) with which the minds of the people are being made "drunken," or confused.

F. D. STARR.