therefore, made on the plan of the Jewish Tabernacle-box-like and oblong.

Coming to details, he quotes those grand words. of Isaiah, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, . . . that stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in," and the passage in Job, which speaks of the pillars of heaven." He turns all that splendid and precious poetry into a prosaic statement, and gathers therefrom, as he thinks, treasres for science.

This vast box is then divided into two compartments, one above the other. In the first of these, men live and stars move; and it extends up to the first solid vault or firmament, where live the angels. a main part of whose business it is to push and pull the sun and planets to and fro. Next he takes the text, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters," and other texts from Genesis. To these he adds the text from the Psalms, "Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens," casts that outburst of poetry nto his crucible with the other texts, and, after Subjecting them to sundry peculiar processes, brings cut the theory that over this first vault is a vast cistern containing the waters. He then takes the

1 Isaiah xl. 22.

3 Genesis i. 6.

2 Job xxvi. 11.

4 Psalm cxlviii. 4.

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expression in Genesis regarding the "windows of heaven," and establishes a doctrine regarding the regulation of the rain, which is afterward supplemented by the doctrine that the angels not only push and pull the heavenly bodies, to light the pu!! earth, but also open and close the windows of heaven to water it.

To find the character of the surface of the earth, Cosmas studies the table of shew-bread ir the Tabernacle. The dimensions of that tauie prove to him that the earth is flat and twice a long as broad; the four corners of the table symbolize the four seasons. To account for the move ment of the sun, Cosmas suggests that at the north of the earth is a great mountain, and that, at night, the sun is carried behind this; but some of the commentators ventured to express a doubt here; they thought that the sun was pushed into a great pit at night, and was pulled out in the morning. Nothing can be more touching in its simplicity than Cosmas's closing of his great argument. He. bursts forth in raptures, declaring that Moses, the prophets, evangelists, and apostles, agree to the truth of his doctrine."

1 Genesis vii. 11.

2 See Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, Paris, 1706, vo! ii., p. 188; also pp. 298, 299. The text is illustrated with engravings showing walls and solid vault (firmament), with the whole apps ratus of "fountains of the great deep," "windows of heaven,

Such was the fortress built against human science in the sixth century, by Cosmas; and it stood. The innovators attacked it in vain. The greatest minds in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing it with new texts, and throwing out new outworks of theologic reasoning. It stood firm for two hundred years, when a bishop--Virgilius of Salzburg--asserts his belief in the existence of the antipodes.

It happened that there then stood in Germany, in the first years of the eighth century, one of the greatest and noblest of men-St. Boniface. His learning was of the best then known; in labors he was a worthy successor to the apostles; his genius for Christian work made him, unwillingly, Primate of Germany; his devotion afterward led him, willingly, to martyrdom. There sat, too, at that time, on the papal throne, a great Christian statesmanPope Zachary. Boniface immediately declares against the revival of such a terrible heresy as the existence of the antipodes. He declares that it amounts to the declaration that there are men on

angels, and the mountain behind which the sun is drawn. For an imperfect reduction of one of them, see article Maps in Knight's Dictionary of Mechanics, New York, 1875. For still another theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited in De Morgan, Paradoxes, 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii., p. 255.

the earth beyond the reach of the means of salvation; he attacks Virgilius; he calls on Zachary for aid; effective measures are taken, and we hear no more of Virgilius or his doctrine.

Six hundred years pass away, and in the fourteenth century two men publicly assert the doctrine. The first of these, Peter of Abano, escapes punishment by natural death; the second, known as Cecco d'Ascoli, a man of seventy years, is burned alive. Nor was that all the punishment: that great painter, Orcagna, whose terrible works you may see on the walls of the Campo Santa at Pisa, immortalized Cecco by representing. him in the flames of hell.'

Still the idea lived and moved, and a hundred years later we find the theologian Tostatus pro

See Whewell, p. 197; careful winnowing out

1 1 Virgil of Salzburg. See Neander's History of the Christian Church, Torrey's translation, vol. iii., p. 63. Since Bayle, there has been much loose writing about Virgil's case. but for best choice of authorities and most of conclusions, see De Morgan, pp. 24-26. For very full notes as to pagan and Christian advocates of doctrine of rotundity of the earth and of antipodes, and for extract from Zachary's letter, see Migne, Patrologia, vol. vi., p. 426, and vol. xli., p. 487. For Peter of Abano, or Apono, as he is often called, see Tiraboschi; also Ginguené, vol. ii., p. 293; also Naudé, Histoire des Grand hommes accusés de Magie. For Cecco d'Ascoli, see Montucla, Histoire des Mathématiques, i., 528; also, Daunou, Études Historiques, vol. vi., p. 320. Concerning Orcagna's representation of Cecco in flames of hell, see Renan, Averroès et l'Averroisme, Paris, 1867, p. 328.

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testing against the doctrine of the antipodes as "unsafe." He has invented a new missile-the following syllogism: "The apostles were commanded to go into all the world, and to preach the gospel to every creature; they did not go to any such part of the world as the antipodes, they did not preach to any creatures there: ergo, no antipodes exist." This is just before the time of "Columbus.

Columbus is the next warrior. The world has heard of his battles: how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how at the Junta of Salamanca the theologians overwhelmed him with quotations from the Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine.' And even after Columbus was triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened the theory of the earth's sphericity, the Church, by its highest authority, was again solemnly committed to the theory of the earth's flatness. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI. issues a bull laying down a line of demarkation upon the earth as a flat disk; this line was drawn from north to south, west of the Azores and Canary Islands; and the Pope, in the plenitude of his knowledge and powers, declared that all lands

1 For Columbus before the Junta of Salamanca, see Irving's · Columbus, Murray's edition, vol. ii., pp. 405–410. Figuier, Sa· vants du Moyen Age, etc., vol. ii., p. 394, et seq. Also, Humboldt, Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent.