The congregation now fixed their eyes with an intent gaze on the preacher as he began; and we are fortunate in being able to give an exact translation of his discourse, it having been printed in January, 1756; and a copy having, by a fortunate chance, fallen into our possession; and it serves to prove that some congregations, a hundred years ago, were not much wiser than they are at the present day, and that some preachers were able to convert the Scriptures to their own purposes with equal facility and talent. See Note. "Few are there among those who hear me, who do not wish to know the origin of these terrific convulsions of the earth; but this is not the first time that God has confided to the ignorant, and hidden from the wise, a knowledge of his profound secrets. `Abscondisti haec a sapientibus et prudentibus, et revelati ea parvulis.' (Matt. xi. 25). "Now, perhaps, some who deem themselves very clever, will endeavour to explain that they arise from natural causes; but yet a man may be very ignorant, and yet be able to convince them that such is not the case. God says it, (and it is enough that He should say it, to be infallible,) that there shall be a great change in our generation. `Generatio praeterit, et generatio advenit.' (Eccles. i. 4.) "Moreover, that the machine of the earth will always preserve a perpetual firmness. `Terra autem in aeternum stat.' (_Ibid_.) "Hence, it is not necessary to be a sage; it is sufficient to be Catholic, and to believe what God says, to know that the earth is immovable. Thus a believer will declare, although he be an ignorant man, notwithstanding that the Copernicanians say the contrary, who confide more on mathematics than on Christianity: it matters little that they affirm, with sacrilegious zeal against the sacred writings, that the earth moves, and that the sun is fixed; and it is in this way that wise men are deceived, and that the ignorant discover the truth. The earth, then, being immovable, for thus He says, who formed the centre of the world: `Firmavit orbem terrae, qui non commovebitur,' (Psalm xciii. 2;) and its immovability being sustained by that omnipotent Idea with which the immense spaces of all infinity were built, what madness it is for those who call themselves sages to consider that the convulsions of the earth arise from natural causes. He only knows who made it with a nod, and can move it with a word. To such a height had this delirium, this _inflation of science_, as the Apostle calls it, arrived, that there was a sophist in the days of antiquity, who declared that, had he whereon to place his feet beyond the circumference of the globe, he could lift it with his shoulders; but this science is that folly of which Solomon speaks: `Stultitia hominis supplantat gressus ejus; et contra Deum servet animo suo.' (Prov. xix. 3.)