69) For the attitude of Leibnetz, Hutchinson, and the others named
toward the Newtonian theory, see Lecky, History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, chap. ix. For John Wesley, see his Compendium of
Natural Philosophy, being a Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation,
London, 1784. See also Leslie Stephen, Eighteenth Century, vol. ii,
p. 413. For Owen, see his Works, vol. xix, p. 310. For Cotton Mather's
view, see The Christian Philosopher, London, 1721, especially pp. 16 and
17. For the case of Priestley, see Weld, History of the Royal Society,
vol. ii, p. 56, for the facts and the admirable letter of Priestley upon
this rejection. For Blaer, see his L'Usage des Globes, Amsterdam, 1642.

Nor have efforts to renew the battle in the Protestant Church been
wanting in these latter days. The attempt in the Church of England,
in 1864, to fetter science, which was brought to ridicule by Herschel,
Bowring, and De Morgan; the assemblage of Lutheran clergy at Berlin, in
1868, to protest against "science falsely so called," are examples
of these. Fortunately, to the latter came Pastor Knak, and his
denunciations of the Copernican theory as absolutely incompatible with a
belief in the Bible, dissolved the whole assemblage in ridicule.

In its recent dealings with modern astronomy the wisdom of the Catholic
Church in the more civilized countries has prevented its yielding to
some astounding errors into which one part of the Protestant Church has
fallen heedlessly.

Though various leaders in the older Church have committed the absurd
error of allowing a text-book and sundry review articles to appear which
grossly misstate the Galileo episode, with the certainty of ultimately
undermining confidence in her teachings among her more thoughtful
young men, she has kept clear of the folly of continuing to tie her
instruction, and the acceptance of our sacred books, to an adoption of
the Ptolemaic theory.

Not so with American Lutheranism. In 1873 was published in St. Louis, at
the publishing house of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri, a work entitled
Astronomische Unterredung, the author being well known as a late
president of a Lutheran Teachers' Seminary.

No attack on the whole modern system of astronomy could be more bitter.
On the first page of the introduction the author, after stating the two
theories, asks, "Which is right?" and says: "It would be very simple to
me which is right, if it were only a question of human import