noon
There was summer and winter , by Divine ordinance , but there was nothing said about summer-time and winter-time . There was but one Time , and even as Life only stained the white radiance of eternity , as the gifted but , alas ! infidel poet remarked , so , too , did Time . But ephemeral as Time was , noon in the Bible clearly meant twelve o'clock , and not one o'clock : towards even , meant towards even , and not the middle of a broiling afternoon . The sixth hour similarly was the Roman way of saying twelve . Winter-time , in fact , was God 's time , and though there was nothing wicked -LRB- far from it -RRB- in adopting strange measures , yet the simple , the childlike , clung to the sacred tradition , which they had received from their fathers and forefathers at their mother 's knee . Then followed a long and eloquent passage , which recapitulated the opening about unhappy divisions , and contained several phrases , regarding the lengths to which such divisions might go , which were strikingly applicable to duelling .