Untitled

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 265, 31 May 1878, Page 9

lx his sermon before the Episcopal Convention in Boston, on the 9th October, Bishop Coxe, of Western New York, said : — "We are told that the Church has always been the enemy of learning, but can there be a more stupid slander ? This argument is always backed upby the story of the persecution of Galileo. I will not deny that G-ali-leo was persecuted, but he was persecuted by the court of Rome, not by the Church of Home. The Church has always been the advocate of knowledge. The court of Eomo, in its persecution of Galileo, was on the side of tho scientists, for the scientists of that day were all against Galileo. It was the scientists, and not the Church, that imposed upon the world the blundering Ptolemaic system. If men will look into the matter they will see that science changes ; the Church uevcr. It seems to be demonstrated that in the days of Job the true system of the universe was known, for tha Pyramids, in their records, tell this story, but the men of science, for sixteen hundred years taught otherwise, and because the Church took them at their word the Church is blauieil for it. Who broke the bonds laid by them upon men ? Bacon, a monk, seems to have anticipated all the truths of modern science, and Copernicus, a Latin priest, threw off the chains which had so long fettered the minds of men.