four years would readjust the balance. But this is not so, and twenty-five leap years per century caused the fraction of a day to increase so as to be really observable. In 1582, the error amounted to ten days; in 1882, to twelve days—in Russia for instance, The papal authorities therefore set themselves to a two-fold task:—correction for the past, and protection against the future were the remedies necessary. The papal mandate accordingly directed:—
(a), The suppression of the record of ten days, thereby correcting the past errors; and
(b). The rejection of three leap years in every four hundred years, so that while 1600, 2000, and 2400 are now to be known as leap years, yet 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2100 are not. In other words, every non-century year is a leap one if it divides by four without remainder, and every century year which divides by 400 evenly is also a leap year.
27. This Gregorian correction not only caused the spring equinox of 1582 to fall on the same day of the month as it did at the Nicene Council, twelve hundred and fifty-seven years before then, but the corrected calendar will prevent even an error of twenty-four hours from arising in three thousand years. To be even more particular, the calculating party has gone to work and he finds that in about 700,000 years, the British Christmas will be in midsummer. The outlook need not alarm us. Fittingly then is the Gregorian correction spoken of as the 'new style,'[1] which a spirit of conservatism has kept Russia, Servia, and Greece from adopting for themselves. The spread of the English language in Russia very recently renders the rejection of the
- ↑ The 'old style' calendar will be found in sections 144 infra.
