The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1857-12-01
THE TESTIMONY OF rHE ROCKS"

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The progress of the physical sciences
has, in all ages, been steadfastly resisted by
the combined forces of bigotry and ignor
ance. In the year 1886, but six years be
fore the discovery of America, council o.
! learned doctors met in Salamanca to dis
cuss the views of Columbus, who was, al
that time, endeayoring to obtain from Fer.
dinand and Isabella, the means of prose
cutting his immortal voyage. "A consider
able number of that learned body enter
tained the belief THAT the opinions of the
great navigator were perversely heterodox,
and that they ought to be expiated a. the
stake. To hold that ship by sailing due
west, could reach the eastern portion OF
the globe, and by holding on the same
course could finally come back to the port
whence she started, was to maintain that
the earth was round, and that there were
persons living on the opposite side of it,
directly under our feet. This was not only
contrary to the teachings of the holy faith
ers, but was in opposition, as they suppos-
ed, to the very letter of scripture. Had
not David said that the Heavens were ex-
tended like hide, and did not the Apostle
Paul compare them to tabernacle spread
over the earth, which must of course be
fiat? A little more than one hundred
years after this memorable decision, Galileo
ventured to teach that the sun was the
centre of the system, and that the earth
and the planets revolved around it; doc
trine which, we believe, is at this day denied
by no civilized man, except one father Gull
len, an Irish priest of the Romish Church,
who maintains that the sun is only six feet
in diameter, and that it travels once in
twenty-four hours around the earth, which
lies flat and unmoveable beneath it. For
teaching truth, now thought to be so un-
deniable, Galileo was imprisoned by the
Inquisition, and only escaped torture by
abjuring it, and declaring that he believed
it to be untrue, because contrary to scrip
ture. 1t must he allowed that there are
scriptural texts, in abundance, against the
doctrine of Calico. The sun stood still at
the command of Joshua, the sun went back
as sign to Hezekiah, 'the sum-" it is said,
"is as bridegroom coming out of his cham
Der and rejoiceth as strong man to run
race" "the sun knoweth his going down."
"the sun also riseth and the sun goeth
down." Not only is the sun spoken of as
a body that is constantly in motion, but
the earth is always spoken of as stationary.
''The earth is also established that it can
not be moved" "Thou hast established
the earth, and it abideth," &c. At the
same time, the sun is spoken of as the
greater light how, then, could the sun be
anything more than body of fire, and how
could the moon be a world like this we in
habit?
The great mistake of all the doctors al
luded to-both those who examined Col
umbus, and those who prosecuted Galileo-
seems to have consisted in forcing the Holy
Scriptures into service they were not in
tended for. Their whole end and scope is
to teach man how to save his own SOUL
Everything necessary to that consumma-
ton, they show forth most abundantly -
but farther than this they do not 60, and
were not designed to 60. So far as the
material world is concerned, it may safely
be affirmed, that they teach nothing by
revelation which man is able to discover by
his own unassisted faculties, the exercise of
which is his chief employment in this world
of probation. It is vain to look for sys-
TENS of astronomy, or of any other science
in the pages of Holy Writ, and those who
seek them there, only succeed in bringing
ridicule upon themselves, and discredit up
on the sacred volume. At the same time,
we think it may be- safely asserted, that
every discovery of science, if properly con-
sidered tends to strengthen the evidence
of scriptural truth.
When geology first began to take its
rank among the established sciences, there
was a general outcry against it, from all
the pulpits in the civilized world. The
Book of Genesis, it was perversely main
tained, places the creation of the world in
an age not quite six thousand years remov-
ed from the present, and it expressly de-
clares that the whole work was finished in
six days of our time. It never seems to
have occurred to them, that a thousand
years is an one day to Omnipotence, and
one day as thousand years. There were
instances innumerable in prophetic language
of the use of days and weeks to denote pc
RODS of much greater duration than the
days and weeks in common acceptation,
! and the description of the earth'e creation,
was certainly prophetic. if any part of scrip
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