hammed had been victorious.

Well, what was the next? You know when Christianity came into power it
destroyed every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. It
defaced and obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful
building; it destroyed the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it
destroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could
find, and burned every library that it could reach with its torch. And
the result was the night of the middle ages fell upon the human race.
But by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts
escaped the fury of religious zeal; a few statues had been buried; and
the result was, that these manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of
which is our civilization of today. A few forms of beauty were dug
from the earth that had protected them, and now the civilized world is
filled with art, with painting, and with statuary, in spite of the rage
of the early church.

What is the next blow that that this church received? The discovery of
America. That is the next. The Holy Ghost, who inspired a man to
write the bible, did not know of the existence of this continent, never
dreamed of it; the result was that His bible never spoke of it. He did
not dream that the earth is round. He believed it was flat, although
He made it Himself, and at that time heaven was just up there beyond
the clouds. There was where the gods lived, there was where the angels
were, and it was against that heaven that Jacob's ladder was that the
angels ascended and descended. It was to that heaven that Christ
ascended after His resurrection. It was up there where the New
Jerusalem was, with its streets of gold, and under this earth was
perdition; there was where the devils lived; there was where a pit was
dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains, and I say that for
this reason: That just in proportion that you have brains, just in that
proportion your chances for eternal joy are lessened, according to this
religion. And just in proportion that you lack brains, your chances are
increased. They believe, under there that they discovered America. They
found that the earth is round. It was circumnavigated by Magellan. In
1519 that brave man set sail. The church told him: "The earth is flat,
my friend; don't go off. You will go off the edge." Magellan said: "I
have seen the shadow of the earth upon the moon, and I have more
confidence in the shadow even than I hav