titled "The Restored Mosaic System of the World" which showed the Copernican astronomy to be unscriptural.
Doubtless this has a far-off sound; yet its echo comes very near modern Protestantism in the expulsion of Dr. Woodrow by the Presbyterian authorities in South Carolina; the expulsion of Prof. Winchell by the Methodist Episcopal authorities of Tennsesee; the expulsion of Prof. Toy by the authorities of another Protestant sect in Kentucky; the expulsion of the professors at Beyrout under authority of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions—all for holding the doctrines of modern science, and in the last years of the nineteenth century.
When Protestants talk of the "bigotry" of the Roman Catholic Church, they will do well to remember that it is impossible to imagine such Catholic authorities as Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishops Ireland and Kenrick, and Bishops Keane and Spalding, sanctioning such suicidal folly as this. The Mother Church has learned something.[1]
But the new truth could not be concealed; it could neither be laughed down nor frowned down. Many minds had received it, but within the hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno, He was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives. For this he was imprisoned during six years, then burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds.[2] Still, the new truth lived on. Ten years after the martydom of Bruno the truth of Copernicus's doctrine was established by the telescope of Galileo.
Herein was fulfilled one of the most touching of prophecies. Years before, the opponents of Copernicus had said to him, "If your doctrines were true, Venus would show phases like the moon" Copernicus answered: "You are right; I know not what to say; but God is good, and will in time find an answer to this objection." The God-given answer came when in 1611 the rude telescope of Galileo showed the phases of Venus.[3]
- ↑ For treatment of Copernican ideas by the people, see The Catholic World, as above; also, Melanchthon, ubi supra; also, Prowe, Copernicus, Berlin, 1883, vol. i, p. 269, note; also, pp. 279, 280; also Mädler, i, p. 167. For Rector Hensel, see Rev. Dr. Shield's Final Philosophy, p. 60. For details of recent Protestant efforts against evolution doctrines, see my chapter on The Fall of Man and Anthropology, in this series.
- ↑ For Bruno, see Bartholmess, Vie de Jordano Bruno, Paris, 1846, vol. i, p. 121 and pp. 212 et seq.; also Berti, Vita di Giordano Bruno, Firenze, 1868, chapter xvi; also Whewell, vol. i, pp. 272, 273. That Whewell is somewhat hasty in attributing Bruno's punishment entirely to the Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante will be evident, in spite of Montuela, to any one who reads the account of the persecution in Bartholmess or Berti; and, even if Whewell be right, the Spaccio would never have been written but for Bruno's indignation at ecclesiastical oppression. See Tiraboschi, vol. vii, pp. 466 et seq.
- ↑ For the relation of these discoveries to Copernicus's work, see Delambre, Histoire de
