The war against opinion was carried on so vigorously that Copernicus, whose acute perception had discovered the errors of Aristotle’s theory of heavenly bodies, was fiercely denounced. Copernicus was born in Westphalia in 1473, he studied at Cracow, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine; at Bologna his piercing genius discovered that the sun was the centre of the planetary system, that the earth was a planet and revolved round the sun like other planets, and thus was first made known the true system of the universe. These discoveries being distasteful to the church, the Pope issued a sentence of excommunication; and the great astronomer died with a heart oppressed by such unmerited persecution. These discoveries were further pursued by another learned physician, Galileo, who was born at Pisa in 1564. He entered the university there in 1581, and prosecuted his studies with such zeal and success, that in a very few years he became Professor of Mathematics. He now began his career as a teacher of the philosophy of Copernicus, and soon received unpleasant evidences that the disciple of truth must be ready to suffer. A congregation of cardinals, monks, and mathematicians of the old school, determined that his works were heretical and dangerous, and the holy inquisition sentenced him to prison. After remaining incarcerated some months he was taken before his judges, and required to renounce his errors, and with his hand upon the Gospel, to swear that they were sinful and detestable. Having performed this horrid penance, his conscience upbraided him, and as he rose from his knees, he exclaimed, “yet it does move,” for which relapse he was further sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. He continued thus secluded for many years, during which time blindness, deafness, and pains in his limbs embittered his existence, and death at length, more merciful than the Holy See, released him from his trials. Newton was born in the year in which this noble martyr died. For the edification of the worshippers of the “good old times,” a few more instances of the loving kindness which prevailed may be acceptable. The clerical sages of the University of Salamanca pronounced that the assertion of Christopher Columbus, that a continent existed beyond the seas, was blasphemous and feloniously wicked. A bishop of Salsburg expressing his belief in the existence of the antipodes was denounced by the bishop of Mentz as a dangerous heretic, and committed to the flames.