214 Transactions of the American Institute. 



The reason was simple. Emperor Charles V had made Yesaliiis his 

 physician, and could not spare him. But on the accession of Philip 

 II of Spain the whole scene changed. That most bitter of bigots 

 must, of course, detest the great innovator. A new weapon was now 

 forged. Vesalius was charged with dissecting living men, and either 

 from direct persecution, as the great majority of authorities assert, or 

 from indirect influences, as the few recent apoLjgists for Philip the II 

 allow, Yesalius became a wanderer. On a pilgrimage to the Holy 

 Land to atone for his sin, he is shipwrecked, and in the prime of his 

 life and strength he is lost to this world. And yet not lost. In this 

 century he again stands on earth. That noble painter Ilanann has 

 again given him to the world. By the magic of Ilanann's pencil we 

 look once more into Yesalius's cell. Its windows and doors, bolted 

 and barred by himself, betoken the storm of bigotry which raged 

 without. The crucifix, toward which he casts his eye, symbolizes the 

 spii'it in which he labored. The corpse of the plague stricken over' 

 which he bends ceases to be repulsive. His very soul seems to send 

 forth rays from the canvas which strengthen us for the good fight in 

 this age. He was hunted to death by men who conscientiously sup- 

 posed that he was injuring religion. His poor blind foes destroyed 

 one of religion's greatest apostles. "What was his influence on relig- 

 ion ? He substituted for repetition by rote of worn out theories of 

 dead men, conscientious and reverent, searching into the works of the 

 living God. He substituted for representations of the human struc- 

 ture, pitiful and unreal, truthful representations, revealing the Crea- 

 tor's power and goodness in QXQvy line. 



Erroks in America. 

 Warfare of this sort against science seems petty indeed, but it is 

 to be guarded against in Protestant countries not less than Catholic. 

 It breaks out in America not less than in France. I have seen, 

 within this last year, the most perverted statements of words uttered 

 in the lecture rooms of an xVmerican university, circulated by excel- 

 lent men, who, in their eagerness, believed them. I have seen 

 phrases, used in lectures by Christian professors at such an institu- 

 tion, eked out and pieced out with prefixes and aftixes, and substitu- 

 tions and suppositions, until they became monstrous perversions; 

 aud then I have seen them used to prove that scientific education is 

 unsafe, and that an unsectarian institution must be unchristian. 

 Lucklily the world has learned something since the days of Galileo 

 and Yesalius. 



