The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-10-29

i
known, quenched in blindness.
That was the house, where" say
Milton, (another of those of whom th
world was not worthy !" L found an,
visited the famous Calico, grown old
LA prisoner to the Inquisitiou, fo
thinking on. astronomy, otherwise thar
as the Dominican and franciscan lieen
sers thought prose works, vol /, p
3I3) Great heavens what tribunal
what culprit, what crime Let VI
thank God, my friends, that we live in
the nineteenth century. Of all the
wonders of ancient or modern art,-stat
utes and paintings, and jewels and man
uscripts,-the admiration and delight
of ages,-there was nothing that l be-
held with more affectionate awe. than
that poor rough tube, few feet iu
length,-the work of his own hands,
that very soptio glass. through
which the : Tuscan Artist, ;" viewed the
moon, &t.I
L AGeVPnl0G IFOtil Jne pOp OF EIcSOiS
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains, in her sPotty globe"
that poor little spy glass (for it is scarce
ly more) through which the human eye
| FIRST distinctly beheld the surface Of the
moon,-frst discovered the phases of
Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, and the
seeming handles of Saturn,-frst pene-
trated the dusky depth Of the heavens,
first pierced the clouds of visual er-
ror, which frem the creation of the
world involved the system Of the Uni
| verse.
There are occasions in life in which a
great mind lives years of frapt enjoyment
in moment. can fancy the emotions
of Galileo, when, first raising the newly
constructed telescope To tue heavens, he
saw. fulfilled the grand prophecy of Co
pernicus, and beheld the planet Venus
crescent like the moon. 1t was such
another moment as that when the i'm
mortal printers of Mentz and Strasburg,
received the first copy of the Bible into
their hands, the work of their divine
Art;-like that when Columbus, through
the gray dawn Of the 18th of October,
1892, (Copernicus, at the age of ls, was
then student at Cracow,) beheld the
shores of San Salvador,-l;ket that when
the law of gravitatiou first revealed it
self to the intellect of Newton,-Iike
that when Franklin saw by the stiffen-
ing 6bers of the hempen cord of his kite,
that he held the lightning iu his grasp,
like that when Leverrier received
back from Berlin the tidings that the
predicted planet was found. -
Yes, noble Calico, thou art right.
Bigots may make thee recant it.; bnt it
moves nevertheless. Yes, the earth
moves, and the planets nGye,--and the
mighty waters move,-apd the great
sweeping tides of air move,--and the
empires of men move.-and the World of
Thought moves, ever onward and up
ward to higher facts aud bolder theories.
The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but
they can no more stop the progress Of
the great truth propouuded by Coperni
Gus and demonstrated by thee, than they
can stop the revolving earth.
Close now, venerable sage, that sight
less, fearful eye it has seen what mat
never before saw ;--it has seen enou, b.
Haug up that poor little spy-gluss; it
has done it's work Not Herschell nor
Rosse have comparatively done more.
FraneiseaRs and DomiDicans deride thy
discoveries now. but the time will come
when from two hundr ed observatories in
Europe and America the glorious artil-
cry of science shall nightly assault the
skies, but they shall gain no conquests
in those glittering fields before which
thine shall be fore often. Rest in peace,
great Columbus of the Heavens. like
him scorned, prosecuted, broken heart
ed, on other ages, in distant heuis-
pheres, when the vo.aries of science,
with solemn acts of cousecration shall
dedicate their stately ediices to the
cause of knowledge and truth, thy uame
shall be mentioned with houor.
Much, however, as we are indebted to
our ebserSatories for elevating our coD-
ceptions of the heavenly bodies, they
present even to the unaided light scenes
of glory which words are too feeble to
describe. 1 had occasion few weeks
since, to take the early train from Pro-
vidsnee to Boston, and for this purpose
rore at two o'clock in the morning
rything around was wrapped in
darkness and hushed in silence, broken
only by what seemed at that hour the
unearthly clank and rush of the train.
It was a mild, serene, mid summer s
night,-the sky was without cloud
the winds were whist The moon, then
10 the last quarter, had just risen, and
the stars shone with a spectral lnstre,
but little affected By her presence. Ju-
piter, two hours high, was the herald OF
the day the Pleiades just above the
ihorizon, shed their sweet influence in
the East; Lyra spsrkied near the ze-
NTH Andromeda yelled her newly-dis-
covered glories from the naked eye in
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