Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 302, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 December 1914 — TUESDAY SHORTEST DAT OF THE TEAR [ARTICLE]

TUESDAY SHORTEST DAT OF THE TEAR

Marks Turning Point of the Sun's Course and Days Will Lengthen Until June 21st. Tuesday, Dec. 22, will be the short est day of the year. The sun will reach its southernmost point at twenty-three minutes past 10 o’clock in the morning, Indianapolis standard time. Even before the foundation of Rome the time of Christmas was celebrated as an astronomical epoch. After the sun reaches its southernmost latitude and begins to return, the days grow longer, the cold relaxes and we pass from the dreariness.of winter to the mildness of spring. On December 25, the Romans celebrated the return of the sun, by the feast of Saturn and our Christmas day is a survival of that ancient festival. Up to the fifth century Christmas was celebrated on January 6 co-jointly with the feast of Epiphany, but the people, in far greater numb err, continued to celebrate the feast of Saturn. The church then changed Christmas to December 25 in order to supplant the heathen festival. For several reasons it is thought that the Nativity could not have occurred in winter. One is that Shepherds and their flock’s could not have been in the fields of Judea during the eojd weather of the rainy season.