Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/190

 126 STATESMEN AND SAGES Word of God, able to make us wise unto salvation ; and none of his discoveries pertaining to the laws of nature shook for one moment his confidence in the rev- elation of the gospel. Copernicus delayed for years the publication of his dis- coveries to the world. That delay had been thought to have proceeded from something like fear, or, at least, caution, lest views in some respects so novel should rouse ecclesiastical antagonism and expose him to serious persecution. But the words used in the dedication of his astronomical work seem to point in another direction. It is there said that he had kept it four times the nine years recommended by Horace, and published it at last in compliance with the en- treaties of his friend, Cardinal Schomberg. " Though I know," it is added, " that the thoughts of a philosopher do not depend on the judgment of the many, his study being to seek out truth in all things as far as that is permitted by God to human reason, yet when I considered how absurd that doctrine would appear, I long hesitated whether I should publish my book, or whether it were not better to follow the example of the Pythagoreans and others, who delivered their doc- trines only by tradition and to friends." From this passage we should infer that he apprehended controversy rather than persecution, that for the former he had no desire, that he was without ambition, and felt no wish to found a new school, but would rather leave truths he had learned quietly to make their way through the world. The fame of Copernicus is now wide as the world. He painted a portrait of himself which fell into the hands of Tycho Brahe ; and he wrote an epigram upon the subject, to the effect that the whole earth could not contain the whole of the man who whirled it along the ocean of ether. Less extravagant was the grateful enthusiasm of Rhiticus, a disciple of Copernicus, when he wrote, " God has given to my excellent preceptor a reign without end, which may He vouch- safe to guide, govern, and increase, to the restoration of astronomical truth. Amen!" " The Copernican system " is the name now generally given to the almost universal scientific belief that the earth and the planets revolve around the sun, though the system carried out and perfected by Kepler, Newton, Halley, La- place, and others is by no means perfectly identical with the theory of the German astronomer. But the inextricable interweaving of his name with opin- ions sanctioned by the entire scientific world, is one of the noblest conceivable tributes to the magnitude and lustre of his renown. His death was in harmony with his life. Shortly before he expired he re peated these words : " Non parem Paulo gratiam require, Veniam Petri neque posco ; sed quam In crucis ligno dederat latroni Sedulus oro." He had lived a life of Christian virtue imitating his master, who went about doing good, healing the sick and preaching the gospel to the poor yet, so far from having anything whereof to boast before God, he said himself that he felt