d zinc. He
explained to the King that by mixing the metals they did not change
their nature nor value. Gold was gold, and copper was copper--God had
made these things and hid them in the earth and men might deceive some
men--a part of the time--but there was always a retribution. Debase your
currency, and soon it will cease to pass current. No law can long uphold
a fictitious value.

The King urged Copernicus to write a book on the subject of coinage.

The permission of the Pope was secured, and the book written. The work
is valuable yet, and reveals a deep insight into the heart of things.
The man knew political economy, and foretold that a people who debased
their currency debased themselves.

"Money is character," he said, "and if you pretend it is one thing, and
it turns out to be another, you lose your reputation and your own
self-respect. No government can afford to deceive the governed. If the
people lose confidence in their rulers, a new government will spring
into being, built upon the ruins of the old. Government and commerce are
built on confidence."

Then he went on to show that German gold was valuable everywhere,
because it was pure; but Polish gold and Russian gold were below par,
because the money had been tampered with, and as no secrets could be
kept long, the result was the matter exactly equalized itself, save that
Russians and Polanders had in a large degree lost their characters
through belief in miracles. Copernicus advocated a universal coinage, to
be adopted by all civilized nations, and the amount of alloy should be
known and plainly stated, and this alloy should simply be the
seigniorage, or what was taken out to cover the cost of mintage.

King Sigismund circulated this valuable book by Copernicus among all the
courts of Europe, and it need not be stated that the suggestions made by
Copernicus have been adopted by civilized nations everywhere.

* * * * *

The humdrum duties of a country clergyman did not still the intense
longing of Copernicus to know and understand the truth. He visited the
sick, closed the eyes of the dying, kept his parish register, but his
heart was in mathematics, and so there is shown at Thorn an old church
register kept by Copernicus, where, in the back, are great rows of
figures put down by the Master as he worked at some astronomical
problem. In the upper floor of the barn, back of the old dilapidated
farmhouse where he lived fo