ANOTHER TABLE TO FIND EASTER TILL THE YEAR 2199 INCLUSIVE.* To make use of the preceding Table, find the Sunday Letter for the Year in the uppermost Line, and the Golden Number or Prime, in the Column of Golden Numbers, and against the Prime, in the same Line under the Sunday Letter, you have the Day of the Month on which EASTER falleth that year. But Note, that the Name of the Month is set on the Left Hand, or just with the Figure, and followeth not, as in other Tables, by Descent, but Collateral. * By permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford. controversy [see notes on Easter Day] by the following epistolary decrees : 1. That the twenty-first day of March is to be taken as the vernal equinox. 2. That the full moon happening upon or next after the twenty-first day of March is to be taken for the full moon of the month Nisan. 3. That the next Lord's Day after that full moon is to be observed as Easter Day. 4. Unless the full moon happens upon a Sunday, when Easter Day is to be the next Sunday. But to observe these rules it was necessary to ascertain the age of the moon and although this could be done correctly for a period by means of a cycle of the moon discovered by Meton, an Athenian philosopher, which set forth the change of the moon for nineteen years, and which was supposed to repeat itself ad infinitum, yet a more accurate knowledge of astronomy shewed that this rule was subject to error, and that Easter Day was sometimes too early and sometimes too late to commemorate our Lord's Resurrection with the accuracy which was intended by the Nicene Council. This erroneous system was not corrected, however, until the introduction of the "New Style" by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582; and the New Style was not introduced into England until 1752, when the Act of Parliament was passed from which the present Calendar is printed. These Tables for finding Easter, together with those which follow, are part of the Act of Parliament referred to [24 Geo. II. c. 23], and have not received the same authority as the Prayer Book itself. Nor does there seem to be any practical necessity for binding them up with every edition of the Prayer Book as is the present custom, since they are of far too recondite a character to be of any use except to highly scientific students; and for ordinary use the Table of Moveable Feasts is amply sufficient. [N.B.-This Table is only a representative and not a facsimile of the Table in the Act of Parliament. The latter extends from 1752 to 1804. For other dates belonging to the twentieth century, see the two Tables in the Appendix, p. 126, to this part of the Calendar.] * By permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford. THE EPACT. The difference between the length of the solar year and that of the lunar year is eleven days; the solar year being made up of 365 days, and the lunar year of twelve months or moons, of twenty-nine and a half days each, or 354 days in all. The last day of the lunar year being the last day of the twelfth moon, and the last day of the solar year being the 31st of December, the difference between these constitutes the Epact.1 In the Golden Numbers | 1 | 2 | 3 | | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | first year of the present cycle the lunar year and the solar year both commenced on the 1st of January; the Epact for the second year was therefore 11, for the third 22, for the fourth 33, and so forth in a regular succession. The whole months are not reckoned, however, and instead of 33, the Epact is taken as 3, instead of 36 as 6, and so forth. A cycle of nineteen Epacts is thus formed which always runs parallel to the nineteen Golden Numbers in the following order : 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 0 | 11 | 22 | 3 | 14 | 25 | 6 | NOTE, that in a Bissextile or Leap Year, the Number of Sundays after Epiphany will be the same, as if Easter Day had fallen One Day later than it really does. And for the same reason, One Day must, in every Leap Year, be added to the Day of the Month given by the Table for Septuagesima Sunday: And the like must be done for the First Day of Lent (commonly called Ash Wednesday), unless the Table gives some Day in the Month of March for it; for in that case the Day given by the Table is the right Day. By permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford. The order in which this Table follows the others makes its use sufficiently evident. The two first Tables being given for the purpose of finding the date of the Festival by which all the moveable Holydays are regulated, and a third added which sets forth all the moveable Helydays for many years to come, this Table is given as a means of finding out for any year, past or future, the respective dates of these days, according to that of Easter. The Note respecting Leap Year must not be overlooked when this Table is used. THE Golden Numbers in the foregoing Calendar will point out the Days of the Paschal Full Moons till the Year of our Lord 2200; at which Time, in order that the Ecclesiastical Full Moons may fall nearly on the same Days with the real Full Moons, the Golden Numbers must be removed to different Days of the Calendar, as is done in the annexed Table, which contains so much of the Calendar then to be used as is necessary for finding the Paschal Full Moons, and the Feast of Easter, from the Year 2200 to the Year 2299 inclusive. This Table is to be made use of, in all respects, as the first Table before inserted, for finding Easter till the Year 2199 25 * By permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, Oxford. This Table is simply for revising the first and third columns of that portion of the Calendar which extends over the Paschal limits, i.e. those days in March and April that Easter can possibly fall on. It will not come into use before the year 1900, and is then applicable for three hundred years. GENERAL TABLES FOR FINDING THE DOMINICAL OR SUNDAY LETTER, To find the Dominical or Sunday Letter for any given Year of our Lord, add to the year its fourth part, omitting fractions, and also the number, which in Table I. standeth at the top of the column, wherein the number of hundreds contained in that given year is found: Divide the sum by 7, and if there is no remainder, then A is the Sunday Letter; but if any number remaineth, then the Letter, which standeth under that number at the top of the Table, is the Sunday Letter. 8 B 7200 9 7300 7400 7500 7800 7900 20 21 20 23 23 24 24 25 25 26 26 26 27 28 27 29 29 29 8500 etc. § The Dominical or Sunday Letters. The second column of the Calendar is occupied by the first To find the Month and Days of the Month to which the Golden Numbers ought to be prefixed in the Calendar, in any given Year of our Lord consisting of entire hundred years, and in all the intermediate years betwixt that and the next hundredth year following, look in the second column of Table II. for the given year consisting of entire hundreds, and note the number or cipher which stands against it in the third column; then, in Table III. look for the same number in the column under any given Golden Number, which when you have found, guide your eye sideways to the left hand, and in the first column you will find the Month and Day to which that Golden Number ought to be prefixed in the Calendar, during that period of one hundred years. The letter B prefixed to certain hundredth years in Table II. denotes those years which are still to be accounted Bissextile or Leap Years in the New Calendar; whereas all the other hundredth years are to be accounted only common years. seven letters of the alphabet, which are repeated throughout the year, beginning with A on the first of January. If the first of January is on a Sunday, A is the Sunday Letter for |