36 THE WORLD, 



We cannot imagine the delight which must have thrilled the 

 heart of Gallileo when he, for the first time since the creation of 

 man, beheld the phases of the evening star. Already a cham- 

 pion for the true system, he must have hailed- this complete and 

 unanswerable evidence, with a joy such as we cannot now 

 conceive. We would have supposed that now the absurd dogma 

 which asserted that the earth was the grand centre of the universe, 

 and denied its diurnal revolution, would have been forever rejected, 

 but alas! error is difficult to eradicate,Mt takes root easily, and 

 attains a most luxuriant growth, without any cultivation. 



Henceforth Gallileo's life was embittered by a persecution from 

 the Church. The doctrines which he maintained, and so ably 

 advocated, were supposed to contradict the Bible, and at the old 

 age of 70, after a life spent in the cause of science, he was tha 

 subject of a most humiliating spectacle. A hoary headed man, 

 with trembling voice abjuring what he knew to be the truth, 

 abjuring, cursing, and detesting as heresies those doctrines which 

 he had spent the vigor of his manhood in establis hing, those 

 eternal and immutable truths which the Almighty had permitted 

 him to be the first to establish, and with his hand on the Gospels, 

 avowing his belief that the earth was the centre of the system, 

 and without the diurnal motion on its axis. Oh ! that the strong 

 spirit which sustained the early martyrs for religion, had supported 

 this martyr of science. But the feebleness of age was upon him, 

 harrassed and tormented, worn out by long persecution, his spirit 

 yielded, and never recovered from the degradation ; blind and 

 infirm, he never talked or wrote more on the subject of astronomy. 

 Here are the qualifications of these two propositions which asserted 

 the stability of the sun and the motion of the earth, as qualified by 

 the Theological Qualifiers : 



I. The propostion that the sun is in the centre of the world, 

 and immovable from its place, is absurd, philosophically false, and 

 heritical, because it is expressly contrary to the Holy Scriptures. 



II. The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the 

 world, nor immovable, but that it moves, and also with a diurna 

 motion, is also abimrd, philosophically false, and theologically 

 considered equally erroneous in faith." 



