gather to look through it. He painted stars on the glass, LITTLE 

 and had men look at the heavens. He even stuck a JOURNEYS 

 louse on the lens and located the beast in the heavens, 

 for the benefit of a doubting Cardinal. It "was all 

 a joke, but at the time, no sober si ncereman of Sci- 

 ence could argue him down. He owned "bum" tel- 

 escopes that proved all kinds of things, to the great 

 amusement of the enemies of Galileo. The intent of 

 Porta was to expose the frauds and fallacies of Galileo. 

 Porta also claimed that he had seen telescopes by 

 which you could look over a hill and around a corner, 

 but he did not recommend them, since by their use 

 things were often perceived that were not there. 

 And so we see why the priests positively refused to 

 look through Galileo's tube, or to believe anything he 

 said. Porta, and a few others like him, showed a deal 

 more than Galileo could and offered to locate stars any- 

 where on order. 



Galileo had much offended these priests by his state- 

 ments that the Bible did not contain the final facts of 

 Science, and now they were getting even with a ven- 

 geance. It was all very much like the theological guf- 

 faw that swept over Christendom when Darwin issued 

 his " Origin of Species," and Talmage and Spurgeon 

 set their congregations in a roar by gentle references to 

 monkey ancestry. 



51 



