The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-11-01
BILL ARp,s LETTER.
Why He Did Not Zee the Great Columbian
Expedition.
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AudDt1 C0nStl&htt0n
1t was a great show, the greatest
show on earth, I reckon. I wanted to
20 and see it, but I didn't go. Itried
to get in on the ground floor for my
self and my wife, but I couldn't, and
as [ didn't have money enough for two
I concluded to stay at home. That's
loyalty-conjugal loyalty. There was
another reason. I heard man talk
ing about another man and he said {:
eyes, dogon him, he can 60 to Chicago
and takes his wife, but he can't pay
me that grocery bill he's been owing
me Cor six months. I owe a few Of
these darn little just debts myself,
and 1 didn't want to be talked about,
so it's alright. It's an awful time to
be sending the money out Of the
country anyhow and getting nothing
but pleasure. It's well enough to
celebrate Columbus and make a great
display, but the times are unfortunate
and the great United States Senate
won't do anything but draw their pay,
and everything is demoralized. | wish
now we had let Mr.. Columbus alone.
ssLead us not into temptation" is q
good prayer. IF there had been no
fair nobody would have wanted to go
and our money would have been kept
at home. Columbus wasn't such a
wonderful man no how. He didn't
mean to discover America, and he
didn't know he had discovered new
continent when he landed. He was
on the make. He stole Indians and
carried them away and sold them.
History does not make him a great
man nor a good man, but he was an
enterprising navigator and was sue
cess, that's all. I would rather have
been Galileo than Columbus. He dis
covered far bigger thing and did it
on purpose. 1t was not an accident.
He discovered the universe, the solar
system and declared it to mankind.
My admiration for him is profound,
and wish the schoolboys and girls to
read about him and think about him.
1t was just 300 years ago this month
that he convinced himself that the
sun did not go around the earth, but
the earth went around the sun. What
stupendous assertion for any man to
make Just think of it For thou
sands of years everybody had seen the
sun to rise and set and rise again
every twenty-four hours, and nobody
doubted or suspected but what it went
around the earth and that the earth
was stationary. 1t does look that
way, doesn't it? No wonder every
body believed it. Joshua believed it
when he commanded the sun to stand
still on Gideon. Solomon believed it,
and so did all the astronomers Of
Egypt and of Greece and Rome. So
did Shakespeare and Bacon and the
wise men Of England. How could
any man dare to say that the earth
went around the sun, making circuit
of 100000, 900 miles in a year and get
back to the same identical spot from
whence it started Z? Columbus didn t
do anything or know anything to be
compared to it. Galileo upset and de-
stroyed the theory of ages and he
challenged the astronomers and the
mathematicians of the world to listen
to him and to come and examine his
proofs. That was only 300 years ago.
Just think how long the world had
slept in utter ignorance of the grand
est thing the human mind can contem-
plate-the solar system. We ought
to have celebrated Galileo in some way
this very year. Columbus discovered
a continent, but didn't know it. Ga
lileo discovered a universe and did
know it. Copernicus had in timid
way declared the same solar system
some fifty years before, but he died
without converts, and his theory died
with him. Even Galileo kept it Sc
cret for seven years. He was afraid
Of the Pope, and after he did announce
it he was put in prison and kept in a
dungeon until his health broke down
and his wife did like Jobs wife. She
begged him to recant and say he had
lied and he did it. 1t was a memora-
BILE sight, the scene Of that recanta-
'tion. The great philosopher down on
his knees before the Pope and in the
presence of cardinals and priests and
learned men, swearing with uplifted
hands that the earth did not go around
the sun, but the sun went around the
earth every day: But as he rose up
and retired from the Pope's presence
he whispered to q friend. II have re-
canted and abjured only to save my
life. The earth does revolve on it's
axis and around the sum-" Then for
seven years he had to go before the
priest three times week and recite
the seven penitential psalms as an
atonement for his heresy. The Pope
and priesthood declared his new
theory to be heresy because it con-
tradicted the Bible. Galileo had
made him telescope, the first one
ever made. He made the tube out Of
an old organ pipe and got spectacle
maker to grind him concave glass for
one end and a convex glass for the
other, and then to his surprise and
delight he saw stars, more stars, new
stars. He improved the telescope un-
til it magnifed thirty times and he
saw the moons of Jupiter. When he
announced his discoveries, the wise
men said he was crank. fanatic, a
fool. They said that any star or
planet that could not be seen with the
naked eye was not intended to be seen
and it was sacrilege to pry into the
mysteries of God. They said there
couldn't be but seven planets for there
were but seven days in the week and
seven metals and seven holes in a
mans head. They kept that poor
man under watch and prosecuted him
to such an extent that he lost his
sight and when John Milton came to
visit him there were two blind men
together conversing earnestly and Sc
oretly about the universe, the solar
system and the wonderful works of the
Creator. There was a scene for a
painter-Nlilton and Galileo-each
soaring in realms of thought far above
the conception of mankind and COM
forting each other in their Affections.
But in his last days Galileo triumphed
over all his enemies and established