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tails," "the feathered monster of seven heads, like the huge serpent of seven heads,"" the devastation of fearful battles, the weapon of seven heads." Elsewhere, in the "Legend of Creation," the number "seven" repeatedly occurs, and also in the "Epic of Izdubar," which contains the Chaldean story of the Flood.

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According to Professor Wilson, writing on " Hindoo Festivals," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society," fasting is held to be meritorious on the day consecrated to Adyta (sun), and also "every seventh lunar day is considered sacred." In Hindoo prayers the word "seven" is conspicSaptami, the great seven, is thus addressed: "Mother of all creatures, Saptami, who art one with the lords of the seven courses, and the seven mystic words." Also the sun,-"Glory to thee who delighteth in the chariot drawn by seven steeds, the illuminator of the seven worlds. Glory to thee on the seven lunar days."

The famous capital pagodas of India are composed of seven square enclosures, one within the other;" and this is the usual style in which these religious monuments of an ancient people are built." The same authority notes the fact that on the coast of Coromandel is a temple-ruin which bears the name of "Seven Pagodas."

Undoubtedly, the most important fact bearing upon the question of septenary time and the origin of the Sabbath, is the revelation of a day which is called a Sabbath or a festal day in the old Babylonian inscriptions. The only question is, whether we have the biblical Sabbath, or simply a day having some correspondence with it. On this point authorities differ. Professor Brown, in a very careful review of the subject, thinks we are not authorized 30 Vol. ix. p. 86.

31 Orme's Military Transactions in Hindostan, Vol. i. p. 178. 33 "All the pagodas on the coast of Coromandel are built in the same general plan."-Ibid., Vol. i. p. 117. A French writer points out the fact that on the south of the Great Pyramid of Cheops, on a platform prepared for them, are six smaller pyramids at equal distance apart and of equal size.Septenary Institutions.

to infer that the Sabbath in the Babylonian inscriptions is parallel with the Hebrew Sabbath." Professor Sayce, however, maintains that the Sabbath was known to the Assyrians." There is certainly a striking resemblance. The Hebrew word for Sabbath has at its base the idea of resi, completeness. A like root-idea lies at the base of the word in the inscription which is translated Sabbath or a festal day.

Here, then, if the interpretation is correct, we have a common idea belonging to the Hebrew and the Accadian term for a Sabbath or festal day. Now the relationship of Sabbath and festal day is not so remote as may be supposed, if we divest ourselves of traditional ideas. A festal day presupposes a day of withdrawment from ordinary occupation; so does the Sabbath.

Also worthy of note is the prominence of seven in the inscriptions, and in the fact that a Sabbath or festal day falls on each seventh day after the new moon. Herc is recurrence of time, though not without variation, viz., the insertion of an extra Sabbtah for the 19th of the intercalary month and the fragment of a week to complete the month.

What, now, is the state of the question thus far examined? 1. A careful investigation of the facts in regard to the customs of nations—from the Nile to the Ganges shows that amongst these peoples the use of weekly-time was prevalent. 2. It prevailed in connection with a Sabbath or festal day, at least amongst the Chaldeans, from a period stretching back to the confines of the Deluge, and long before the law was announced from Sinai. 3. There is no reason for believing that the nations within these limits derived it from the Israelites or from each other. 4. There are traces of septenary time before the Flood. 5. Noah recognized the week in the intervals of sending forth the doves. And, 6, unless there is positive evidence $34. The Sabbath in the Cuneiform Records," Presbyterian Review, 1882. The Hibbert Lectures, p. 76.

that those nations, the nearest and most direct descendants of Noah, derived their week from some well-established local source, all the circumstances and conditions of the case point to the conclusion that septenary observance dates from antediluvian ages.

From these data and conclusions now there is practically no dissent. The fact of septenary time is admitted as prevalent within defined latitudes and longitudes. The only question is as to its origin. But, it is said, "when we pass the Himalayan Mountains, or in proportion as we recede in any direction from Egypt and India or the countries lying between them, we lose all traces of a seven-day week.'

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This statement, whilst it may be admitted to be correct to a certain degree, does not state the case exactly as it is. Exceptions must be taken to its sweeping character. There is reason for believing that the Chinese once observed a week of seven days. This is the testimony of Humboldt: "The week is in use among the Chinese, who seem also aborigines of the elevated plain of Tartary.' In a book, called "Book of Diagrams," ascribed to Fuh-he, who lived about B. C. 2000 years, occurs this passage, "Every seven days comes the revolution." This singular sentence was first pointed out by Dr. Legge of Hong Kong." Also in Chinese almanacs four days of a month are marked, corresponding to our Sunday."

On trustworthy authority, too, weekly-time, it would seem, was observed on the west coast of Africa, at a period when the inhabitants of that region had no intercourse 35 Origin of Septenary Institutions, p. 14.

36 Researches, Vol. i. p. 285. “Many occurrences of the number of seven days have been noticed in the popular customs, rites, superstitions, and traditions of the nations. . . . . All these are probably the relics of a very ancient observance of a seven-days period, or, it may be, of a Sabbath in prehistoric ages. Chinese Recorder, July, 1871.

"Gillespie's Land of Sinim, pp. 161-162.

38 There is some doubt as to the antiquity of marking the four days in the Chinese Imperial Almanac.-Chinese Recorder, July 1871.

with Europeans. "The division of time into weeks of seven days seems to have prevailed among the Negroes before they had any intercourse with the Europeans, since the different days are distinguished by significant names in the language of the Negroes. . . . Every man dedicates onc day in the week to the honor of his tutelary divinity." The inhabitants on the coast of Guinea set apart a seventh day for the worship of their gods." "The seventh day they leave working, and reckon that to be their day of ease and abstinence from work, or their Sunday..

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a priest. . . . . He sits before the altar. men, women, and children come and sit around him and he speaketh unto them."" Indeed, according to one of these authorities," the usage of the week amongst the western tribes of Africa, from Guinea southward, was very general, and their day of rest was both religious and festal.

Traces of a seventh-day period are also found in the extreme East. In Pegu, a province of the Ganges, Monday was devoted to religious worship, and priests called Tallopoise were appointed to give the people instruction." And a similar custom, according to the same authority, seems to have been observed in the provinces of Siam and Laos, whose priests bear the same name as those of Pegu. In Ceylon the people hold a yearly festival, bcginning at the full moon and lasting seven days.“ The Tonguinnese observed the 1st and 15th days of the month," and the Japanese week consisted of fourteen days, which was also the week in the Burman Empire." In addition to their market-week of five days, the people of Java also had a seven-day week."

"Bell's Geography Vol. iv. p. 30.

40 IIurd's Religious Rites, p. 455.

41 Purchas' Pilgrimage, Book vii. chap. 2, sec. 4.
41 Bell's Geography, Vol. iv. p. 30.

43 Religious Rites, p. 90.

4 Ibid.,

P. 118.

45 Ibid., p. 102.

46 Bell, Vol. v. p. 225.

41 Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor General of Java.

It has been supposed that the seven-day week of the Javans was confined to the religious festivals of the Buddhists, who brought it to Java from India. Indeed, how far the influence of ancient India made itself felt in the nations of the East, is difficult to determine: and any traces of septenary time now found amongst them must be accepted with caution as evidence of the independent origin of it amongst the aborigines of that region. Such traces may be only the remnant of the ancient Hindoo week.

The facts in regard to a week as gathered in the western hemisphere do not differ materially from those which are gathered from the eastern. A week of five days was observed by the ancient people of Mexico, on the last of which they held their public fair-a market-day." "Of the calendar of the Peruvians little is known," says Prescott, who remarks, however, that they had a week, "but of what length, whether of seven, nine, ten, days, is uncertain.' ""On the authority which Humboldt cites-Polothe week of the Hindoos was known to the Peruvians; but, "according to an ancient law of the Inca Pacacutec." given by Garcilasso in his history of the Incas, "the people are to work not seven, but eight consecutive days, and rest the ninth." "

Now, although the facts as regards septenary time gathered from nations outside the limits of the Ganges and the Nile, may not be so satisfactory as those which Mesopotamian people present, they are in the same line, and show at least the untrustworthiness of the claim that "when we pass the Himalayan Mountains, or in proportion as we recede in any direction fron Egypt and Iadia, or the countries that lie between them, we lose all traces of a sevenday week."

The state of the case, then, is this: The nations from 48 Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, Vol. i. p. 120; Bancroft's Native Races, Vol. ii. p. 385.

49 Conquest of Peru, Vol. i. p. 125.

50 Researches, Vol. i. p. 285.

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