ve children, born of orthodox Christian parents, who heard
the Bible read aloud, looked fearfully into the sky for "signs and
wonders." The Bible tells in several places of devils breaking out of
Hell and roaming over the earth. Dante fully believed in this
three-story-house idea, and pictures with awful exactness the details,
which he gained from the preaching of the priests. Dante was never
honored by having his books placed on the "Index." On the contrary, he
got his vogue largely through the recommendation of the priests. To them
he was a true scientist, for he corroborated their statements.

The Christian Fathers ridiculed the idea of the earth being round,
because, if this were so, how could the people on the other side see the
Son of Man when He came in the sky? Besides that, if the earth were
round and turned on its axis, we would all fall off into space.

The idea that there was an ocean above the earth, in the heavens, was
brought forward to show the goodness and wisdom of God. Without this
there would be no rain and hence no vegetation, and man would soon
perish. In Genesis we read that God said, "Let there be a firmament in
the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters,"
And in Psalms, "Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens and ye waters that be
above the heavens." Then we hear, "The windows of Heaven were opened."
So this thought of the waters above the earth was fully proved, accepted
and fixed, and to pray for rain was quite a natural thing.

The English Prayer-Book contained such prayers up to within a very few
years ago, and in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-three the Governor of Kansas
set apart a day upon which the people were to pray that God would open
the windows of Heaven and send them rain. They also prayed to be
delivered from grasshoppers, just as in Queen Elizabeth's time the
Prayer-Book had this, "From the Turk and the Comet, good Lord deliver
us."

In the Sixth Century, Cosmos, one of the Saints, wrote a complete
explanation of the phenomena of the heavens. To account for the movement
of the sun, he said God had His angels push it across the firmament and
put it behind a mountain each night, and the next morning it was brought
out on the other side. He met every objection by citations from Job,
Genesis, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes and the New Testament, and wound up with
an anathema upon any or all who doubted or questioned in this matter of
astronomy.

The whole Christian idea o