NOT." Instead, then, of an error, we have an exact description of
the earth's motion--a motion so steady and equable, that for
thousands of years no single individual out of the myriads who
were continually carried along by it had ever suspected its
existence.

Well had it been for all if the lesson thus taught had been deeply
laid to heart. But unhappily it was entirely unnoticed. Science
pursued its way with increasing energy, and more facts were year
by year brought to light which seemed entirely to contradict the
teaching of the Bible, and again alarm and distrust sprung up in
the minds of what, for want of a better name, we may perhaps be
allowed to designate as the "Theological Party." The power of the
Church of Rome was by this time so far curtailed that the old
means of repression were no longer available; but the old spirit
survived, and not in Rome only. There was the same blind distrust,
the same mistaken zeal for supposed truth, the same indignation
which naturally arises when things which we hold precious are
attacked, and, as it seems to us, without any sufficient reason.

There was indeed much to account for and even to justify the
feelings of anger and alarm which were excited, for the time when
these discoveries began to be brought prominently forward was the
latter half of the last century. At that time the famous French
Academy was doing its deadly work, and the new discoveries were
gladly hailed by the infidel philosophers of France, as weapons
against the Bible. But the reception given to these discoveries by
the theological party, though partially justified by the
circumstances of the times, was nevertheless very mischievous in
its results. For though the new discoveries were hailed