DOSS THE EARTH MOVE.

Kumara Times, Issue 573, 29 July 1878, Page 2

DOSS THE EARTH MOVE.

The Bev. John Jasper, pastor of the largest coloured Baptist church at Richmond, Virginia, in a sermon which he preached, on the evening of Sunday, March 17, and which has attracted at- 1 tendon throughout the United States, proved to his own satisfaction and ap- 1 parently to that of his congregation, that the philosophers are entirely mistaken in their theory that the’ earth revolves round the sun. “ jf,” SH id the reverend gentleman, “he did not prove hy Bible authority that the sun moves, he would never preach again.” The earth, he maintained, is motionless j for, as he pointed out, if the ean.h turned round, “the ocean would be spilled over the land,” His chief argumeht in favor of the motion of the sun is the fact that Joshua told tiie sun to stand still; which would have been a ridiculous superfluity if the sun had really never moved. At the close of his eloquent discourse, he called on those of his audience who believed that the. sun moved round the earth, to hold up their right hands, and, in answer to the invitation, every hand in the cbmch was uplifted. The Nation, speaking of this sermon, observes that it is impossible not to regard it as part of the great movement n®w spreading over the United - States, to givo the poor and ignorant a fair chance in the solution of the leading problems of the day. A good many branches of knowledge have been kept until now in the hands of persons who have had leisure ami money enough to study them, until the arrogance of this class has become intolerable. The people are, however, going to take the astronomy question into their own hands, as they have taken the money question, and the word of the honest working man—no matter ot wuat colour—will soon go as far, with regard to the motions ot the planets, as that ot the bloated astronomer in his luxurious observatory, with his costly instruments, which would never have existed but -for the toil of the industrious mechanic.—Pall Mall Gazette.