Saadi. See Sádi.
Saale, the name of several German rivers, the most important of
which rises in the Fichtelgebirge, near Zell, in Upper Bavaria; flows
northward, a course of 226 m., till it joins the Elbe at Barby; has
numerous towns on its banks, including Jena, Halle, and Naumburg, to
which last it is navigable.
Saarbrück (10), a manufacturing town in Rhenish Prussia, on the
French frontier, where the French under Napoleon III. repulsed the
Germans, August 2, 1870.
Sabadell (18), a prosperous Spanish town, 14 m. NW. of Barcelona; manufactures cotton and woollen textiles.
Sabæans, a trading people who before the days of Solomon and for
long after inhabited South Arabia, on the shores of the Bed Sea, and who
worshipped the sun and moon with other kindred deities; also a religious
sect on the Lower Euphrates, with Jewish, Moslem, and Christian rites as
well as pagan, called Christians of St. John; the term Sabæanism
designates the worship of the former.
Sabaoth, name given in the Bible, and particularly in the Epistle of
James, to the Divine Being as the Lord of all hosts or kinds of
creatures.
Sabathai, Levi, a Jewish impostor, who gave himself out to be the
Messiah and persuaded a number of Jews to forsake all and follow him; the
sultan of Turkey forced him to confess the imposture, and he turned
Mussulman to save his life (1625-1676).
Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, observed by the Jews as a day
of “rest” from all work and “holy to the Lord,” as His day, specially in
commemoration of His rest from the work of creation, the observance of
which by the Christian Church has been transferred to the first of the
week in commemoration of Christ's resurrection.
Sabellianism, the doctrine of one Sabellius, who, in the third
century, denied that there were three persons in the Godhead, and
maintained that there was only one person in three functions, aspects, or
manifestations, at least this was the form his doctrine assumed in course
of time, which is now called by his name, and is accepted by many in the
present day.
Sabianism. See Sabæans.
Sabine, a river of Texas which, rising in the extreme N. of the
State, flows SE. and S., forming for 250 m. the boundary between
Louisiana and Texas, passes through Sabine Lake into the Gulf of Mexico
after a navigable course of 500 in.
Sabine, Sir Edward, a noted physicist, born in Dublin; served in
artillery in 1803, maintained his connection with it till his retirement
in 1874 as general, but owes his celebrity to his important
investigations into the nature of terrestrial magnetism; accompanied as a
scientist Boss and Parry in their search for the North-West Passage
(1819-20); was President both of the Royal Society from 1861 to 1879 and
of the British Association in 1853 (1788-1883).
Sabines, an ancient Italian people of the Aryan stock, near
neighbours of ancient Borne, a colony of whom is said to have settled on
the Quirinal, and contributed to form the moral part of the Roman people. Numa, the second king of the city, was a Sabine. See Romulus.
Sable Island, a low, sandy, barren island in the Atlantic, 110 m. off the E. coast of Nova Scotia; is extremely dangerous to navigation, and is marked by three lighthouses; is gradually being washed away.
Sabots, a species of wooden shoes extensively worn by the peasants
of France, Belgium, &c.; each shoe is hollowed out of a single block of
wood (fir, willow, beech, and ash); well adapted for marshy districts.
Sacerdotalism, a tendency to attach undue importance to the order
and the ministry of priests, to the limitation of the operation of Divine
grace.
Sacheverel, Henry, an English Church clergyman, born at Maryborough, who became notorious in the reign of Queen Anne for his embittered attack (contained in two sermons in 1700) on the Revolution Settlement and the Act of Toleration; public feeling was turning in favour of the Tories, and the impolitic impeachment of Sacheverel by the Whig Government fanned popular feeling to a great height in his favour; was suspended from preaching for three years, at the expiry of which time the Tories, then in power, received him with ostentatious marks of favour; was soon forgotten; was an Oxford graduate, and a friend of Addison; a man of no real ability (1672-1724).