WHY ADD OR DROP A DAY?
By Jennie M. Snow
SOME people think it impossible to keep any definite day on a round earth, since a person traveling around the earth toward the east has to drop a day to his reckoning, while one going toward the west has to add one. This argument is often brought to bear on the seventh-day Sabbath, while the very ones advancing it find no difficulty in keeping the first day of the week. If we can give a good reason for adding or dropping the day, as the case may require, we will then have established the fact that the round earth does not interfere with the observance of any day. Let us suppose that a man starts at the sunrise point "A," and traveling toward the east makes a complete circuit of the earth in 360 days. Since there are 360 degrees in the circumference of the earth, he passes over just one degree in a day. At sunrise the second morning he is at point "B," and finds that it has been just 23 hours and 56 minutes since he witnessed the last sunrise. Thus we see that this man, by his motion in connection with the apparent motion of the sun, has made for himself a day 23 hours and 56 minutes long. When he has completed his circuit, he has seen the sun rise 361 times. The day that God has made and marks for us by the rotation of the earth is 24 hours long, and in 360 days the sun rises 360 times. Then is it not proper for this man to drop one day from his reckoning, that it may be in harmony with that marked to us by Jehovah? In traveling toward the west, the second morning would find him at point "C," and it then would have been 24 hours and 4 minutes since he saw the last sunrise. This man, by his motion in opposition to the motion of the earth, has made his day 24 hours and 4 minutes long. At this rate, in completing his circuit, he will have seen the sun rise 359 times. In reality it has risen 360 times. This man, then, should add the day he has made in consequence of his motion, and his time will then harmonize with that of those around him. Now that we have seen why we add or drop the day, we can make our time agree with that God has given us, and still observe the definite seventh day.