EPIPHANY 36 EPWORTH LEAGUE pulsed. The French jvere able to hold their lines just E. of Epinal. Pop. about 30.000. EPIPHANY (-pif'a-ni), a Church festival, observed on Jan. 6 in honor of the adoration of our Saviour by the three magi, or wise men, who came to adore Him and bring Him presents, led by the star. As a separate festival it dates from 813. EPIRUS (-pi'rus), a province of an- cient Greece, now forming the S. part of Albania. It was separated from Grecian Illyria by the Ceraunian Mountains, and by the famous river Pindus from Thes- saly. The river Acheron, also famous in mythological story, flowed through its limits. Here were also the celebrated temple and sacred grove of Dodona. Pyrrhus, King of Macedon, was a native of Epirus, which country passed succes- sively into the hands of the Romans and the Turks. It was ceded to Greece by the Turks in 1881. EPISCOPAL CHURCH. See PROTES- TANT Episcopal Church; Reformed Episcopal Church. EPITAPH, an inscription on a tomb or monument in honor or memory of the dead. Epitaphs were in use both among the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks distinguished by epitaphs onh' their il- lustrious men. Among the Romans they became a family institution, and private names were regularly recorded on tomb- stones. The same practice has generally prevailed in Christian countries. EPIZOOTIC, or EPIZOOTIC DIS- EASE, a disease that at some particular time and place attacks great numbers of the lower animals, just as an epidemic attacks man. Pleuro-pneumonia is often an epizootic, as was also the rinderpest. See Epidemic. EPOCH, in ordinary language, a point of time from which a new computation of years is begun. Technical uses : History. — A point of time in which an event of such importance takes place that its influence is powerfully felt in all suc- ceeding time. Geology. — The term is sometimes used for period, as the Tertiary epoch; this sense of the word is loose and objection- able, as the term epoch more properly refers to the moment at which a new space of time commences than to its whole duration. Astronomy. — The longitude which a planet has at any given moment of time. To predict this for any future period the longitude at a certain instant in the past must be known; that instant is the epoch of the planet, which is an abbreviation for its longitude at that epoch. An epoch and an era are different. Both mark important events, but an era is an epoch which is chronologically dated from; an epoch is not marked in this way. The birth of Christ and the Reformation were both of them highly important epochs in the history of man- kind; the former, the inconceivably greater event of the two, gave rise to the Christian era ; but the Protestant na- tions and Churches do not any of them reckon time from the Reformation. The birth of Christ was, therefore, both an epoch and an era, the Reformation an epoch only. EPSOM, a town in the county of Surrey, England, 15 miles S. W. of Lon- don, formerly celebrated for a mineral spring, from the water of which the well- known Epsom salts were manufactured. The principal attraction Epsom can now boast of is the grand race meeting held on the Downs, the chief races being the Derby and Oaks. EPSOM SALT, sulphate of magnesium (Mg SO4 7H2O), a cathartic salt which appears in capillary fibers or acicular crystals. It is found covering crevices of rocks, in mineral springs, etc.; but is commonly prepared by artificial proc- esses from magnesian limestone by treating it with sulphuric acid, or by dis- solving the mineral kieserite (Mg SOi H2O) in boiling water, allowing the in- soluble matter to settle, and crystallizing out the Epsom salt from the clear solu- tion. It is employed in medicine as a purgative, and in the arts. See Epsom. EPSTEIN, JACOB, an American sculptor. He was born in New York, 1880, and was educated in the New York public schools. He then took up sculpture and after producing several minor works was commissioned in 1907 to execute eighteen figures to decorate the recently erected building of the British Medical Association in London. The work, with the strongly marked anatomy of the figures, aroused much adverse criticism, though it had its defenders. In 1909 he was commissioned to execute the tomb of Oscar Wilde for the Pere Lachaise Ceme- tery, Paris; the tomb was carved out of Derbyshire marble. Later he decorated the Church Square, Pretoria, and in 1919 his figure of Christ caused much com- ment. EPWORTH LEAGUE, a society of young people of the Methodist Episcopal Church; formed May 15, 1889, in Cleve- land, O., by the union of five societies afliliated with the Methodist Church. It adopted as its motto: "Look up, Lift up," and its declai'ed object is to "promote inte)b>ent and loyal piety in the young
