This, perhaps, should not be a matter of surprise to any person after viewing the character and condition of philosophy and the wide-spread scientific ignorance which reigned over the world at that period. Let it be borne in mind that science was the book which does not contain several errors of this character but just budding into life, and philosophy had attained but a feeble growth amongst that portion of the earth's inhabitants who constituted the representatives of the Jewish and Christian religion. Not only does their history and their writings show that they were, for the most part, ignorant of what little science there was in the world,--which was small compared with the present period,--but they opposed it whenever they came in contact with it. Every thing was ascribed to supernatural power. The word "science" only occurs twice in the Bible,--once in the Old Testament, and once in the New; and, in the latter case, it was used for the purpose of condemning it. Paul advises Timothy to "beware of the babblings of science" (1 Tim. vi. 20). The word "philosophy" is used but once in the Bible, and then not to recommend it; but Paul uses it to condemn it, as he does science, or at least to discourage it: "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain conceit" (Col. ii. 8). It will be observed, then, that there is apparently a veto placed upon the study of science and philosophy in the only two instances in which reference is made to them in the Bible. We can not wonder, therefore, that its devout disciples have in all ages, until a very recent period, set themselves squarely against the propagation of science and philosophy. It was but carrying out the spirit of their Bible. The early Christians, almost to a man, discouraged the study of science, and condemned and persecuted those who attempted to propagate its principles, and even put some of them to death. Copernicus was persecuted for setting forth principles of astronomy which conflicted with the teachings of the Bible; Galileo was sentenced to death because he taught the rotundity and revolution of the earth in opposition to the Bible, which declares, "The earth has foundations, and can not be removed" (Ps. civ. 5); and Bruno suffered the penalty of death for teaching substantially the same doctrine. And every discoverer in science was condemned and persecuted. Much was written by the early fathers in acknowledgment of the incompatibility of science with religion and the teachings of the Bible, and to warn the pious disciple of the danger of occupying his mind in the investigation and study of science. Even Eusebius, the popular ecclesiastical writer of the third century, and one of the most intelligent Christians of that age, acknowledged he had a contempt for "the useless baubles of the philosophers:" "We think little of these matters, turning our souls to the exercise of better things." And Lactantius, a Christian of the