eleven years-which arises from the fact that eleven years (three being leap years) contain 4018 days, which make an exact number of weeks and nearly an exact number of lunar months, the number of weeks being 574 and the number of lunar months being 136, with a surplus of one day, twenty hours and ten minutes. If, therefore, the full moon happens on Saturday, 8th April, Easter day will be on the 9th. Eleven years afterward the full moon will occur on Thursday, the 6th April, and Easter on the 9th; eleven years after that full moon will occur on Tuesday, the 4th April and Easter on the 9th. Thus three of these instances may occur successively at intervals of eleven years; but it would not occur a fourth time, because there can only be three successive eleven year periods, each having three bissextile years; and if the 9th of April happens on Sunday three times successively, yet it cannot do so the fourth time.

THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL.

That the material world is not eternal is very clearly proved by the progressive changes which it undergoes. It seems clear that worlds are now in the process of formation. Some of the nebulæ at least, are agglomerating into revolving spheres, and the solar system presents every indication of having gone through the same process. The sun itself and all the planets have passed through a process of condensation, and are still subject to that process. The billions of years of duration through which the formation and

But

organizing process has been going on may appall the mind when it attempts to comprehend it; but were it a billion times longer than it has been, it would still be limited duration, and could constitute no conceivable comparison with eternity. We are necessarily carried back, therefore, to a period when the matter of the Solar Universe, and of all other universes, was in a gaseous, chaotic and dispersed state, and when its revolutions, the effect of gravitation, and the cause of distinct formation into spheres, had not begun. And yet the matter of these universes, if endowed with this gravitating power, must necessarily have begun to move and to revolve as soon as it commenced to exist. If it existed from eternity, its development into spheres must have existed from eternity, and their ultimate state of unchangeable solidity would have been reached before the commencement of time. we see that this state is not yet reached, and, therefore, it is demonstrable either that the particles of water had a beginning, or that the gravitation of matter had a beginning. But we cannot separate the one from the other. For if the particles themselves are eternal, and gravity had a beginning, what gave it that beginning? The particles themselves could not evolve it, because having existed eternally without this power, they must have acquired it by its being superinduced from some cause foreign to themselves; and the creation of this power (gravitation) would be as fatal to the idea of the eternity of the universe as the creation of the particles of matter would be. It follows, therefore, as a necessary result, that matter cannot be eternal. And if matter is not eternal, then we are landed upon the necessity of some other eternal existence which has produced matter and its

laws. For the human mind cannot conceive a beginning to duration nor the absolute non-existence of some being from eternity.

The overwhelming law of our own nature therefore drives us to the belief, nay, to the absolute certainty, of the existence of an eternal and infinite Being who has created all things and given them their laws.

The fact of progression in the order of nature is abundantly proved by the phenomena exhibited by the planet which we inhabit. The successive geologic periods show the progress from a molten metallic mass on which no life or vegetation could exist, through all the stages of change and development, the origin of vegetable and animal life, the production and disappearance of extinct organisms, down to the earth of to-day, on which man and new races of animals find a congenial home. Man himself has passed through changes and progressions. The evidences of his existence grow fainter and fainter as we travel back into the past history of the earth; and after they begin to show themselves, we find on our return upon the track of time that the manifestations of his culture and civilization increase age after age until we reach the dawn and afterwards the broad daylight of human history.

All that is revealed to us in the universe betokens constant change and constant progression. It is this law of change and progression on which is based the absolute demonstration that the visible universe had a beginning, and that the only occupant of eternity and immensity was and is and must be its Creator and Governor.

February 22d, 1883.

[New York Evangelist, June 28, 1883.]

YEAR AND DAY OF CHRIST'S CRUCIFIXION.

BY HON. JOSEPH P. BRADLEY, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

The exact time of Christ's crucifixion may be approximately demonstrated by astronomical calculation, after paying due regard to the historical data we possess. The cardinal conditions required by these data are, first, that the time must be brought within the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate; secondly, it must be after the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, and after the thirtieth of Christ's age; thirdly, it must occur on the 15th of the Jewish month Nisan (or Abib) and on the sixth day of the week, or Friday.

1. Pilate's procuratorship is fixed as follows: From Josephus we learn that Gratus was appointed Procurator of Judea by Tiberius, after the death of Augustus (which occurred August 19, A. D. 14) and continued eleven years, and then returned to Rome; and that Pontius Pilate went out as his successor, and continued ten years, and was then recalled, and started for Rome, but before he arrived Tiberius was dead. As the death of Tiberius happened March 16, A. D. 37, and as it probably took Pilate several months to make his preparations and complete his journey to Rome in the winter, it is apparent that the last year of his administration was A. D. 36, and that his entire administration extended from A. D. 26 to A. D. 36 (Josephus' Antiq., b. XVIII, c. II, sec. 2; c. IV, sec. 2).

2. Luke in his Gospel, Chap. III, says that the preaching and baptism of John commenced in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judea; and that Jesus was baptized beginning to be about thirty years of age; and that immediately afterwards He was tempted, and then returned to Nazareth, and commenced publicly to teach the people (Luke, Chaps. III, IV). As it is generally agreed that Christ's public ministry continued some three years, the crucifixion must have occurred within three or four years of the above date.

Now, what year was the fifteenth of Tiberius? and what year was it in which Jesus began to be thirty years of age? The years of Tiberius' reign were reckoned from two different epochs; one, his admission as joint Emperor with Augustus over all the provinces and armies, which took place in the year 12, and the other, his accession to the entire government on the death of Augustus, which occurred in the year 14. The first of these would naturally be used in Judea, and the fifteenth from this epoch would be the year 26, the year in which Pilate's procuratorship commenced. We are confirmed in supposing that this was the year meant when we take into consideration the age of Jesus at that time. We know that he was born in the reign of Herod-probably in the last year of his reign, because he is spoken of as still "the young Child" when he was brought back from Egypt on the death of Herod and the accession of Archelaus (Matt. ii, 20). Josephus gives us the materials for fixing the date of Herod's death. He tells us that he was made King by vote of the Roman Senate, with the consent of Augustus, in the 184th Olympiad, when Caius Domitius