It is important, as never before, for those who see the truth and recognize the right to declare the same with all authority. It is said that the Emperor Henry IV. stood shivering two whole days and nights in the snows of the courtyard of Canossa Castle, suing piteously for permission to throw himself, in agonized submission, at the feet of Hildebrand. That he was shunned by his subjects more absolutely because of the ban that was upon him than he would have been had he been afflicted with the smallpox. This incident illustrates for us the authority wielded by the Church of the Middle Ages. The Church was then felt to be in touch with tremendous power. Its fulminations carried terror to the hearts of kings and subjects. What the Church declared should be done, or should be left undone, the people felt could only be disregarded at the peril of all hope for time and eternity. It not only declared the duties men were under the necessity of observing in order to save their souls, but the kind of thoughts men were under the necessity of thinking concerning the shape of the earth, the movements of the stars, and the structure of the human body, in order to save themselves from the odium of heresy. The Church reigned without a rival in all the civilized world. She was not expected to give any reason for her actions or her utterances. When she determined what the order of the solar system was, the brains of men were compelled, without question, to acquiesce. Even to doubt was to deny the faith. The Church dictated the policy of the stars without being at the trouble of studying the stars; and no other sidereal opinions were tolerated but such as she formulated and published. But the minds of scholars and students, in different parts of Europe, began to reach other conclusions concerning the nature and order of things than such as had been ecclesiastically settled for them. Copernicus saw that the heavenly bodies did not move in accordance with the teachings of the Church. And when the Venetian scholars looked through the telescope of Galileo at Padua, and saw Jupiter and his satellites, a central sun and revolving planets, the authority of the Church on the subject of astronomy was gone. In this way the Church has been forced to give up one position after another. The people, seeing she had no foundation for the opinions she held concerning nature, began to question the value of her opinions concerning God, and heaven and hell, and right and wrong.