Tárogató, 1940-1941 (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1940-11-01 / 5. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 A Story With a Moral But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Job 28:12. It was on June 22nd, 1633, that Galileo, the great astronomer of his time, was condemned by the Inquisition for “maintaining that the earth movesi and the sun is stationary.” The story is familiar. An old man, weakened by illhealth, and many sorrows, and forsaken by any friends that he had, under pressure of the Tribunal, denied the theory that he had held for nearly a lifetime, that the earth rotated on its axis and moved around the sun, and made a most abject declaration of his mistake and error. We used to be able to think, as the story ran, that as Galileo rose from his knees, after making his abjuration, he murmured almost inaudibly, “it moves, nevertheless,” but the historian of today hardly leaves us the comfort of that thought, though many would admit that the old man thought the words even if he hadn’t the strength to say them. This interesting historic incident has often been used as a whip to chastise the Church with, but it ought to be remembered that opinion and conviction outside the Church at that time would have quite agreed with its decision. The moral isn’t exclusively as against the bigoted theologian and the narrowminded ecclesiastic, but perhaps ought to stand as against some of the rest of us quite as emphatically. If we had been there, the last thing in the world we would have thought to do would have been to rise up in our great wisdom and fearlessly tell the world how right the old man was, and how thoroughly we agreed with him. It is very easy to be brave and understanding after the event, but not many of us can be before it. Perhaps there is a moral here as against too great dogmatism jn any way or over any issue. Convictions are great and necessary things, and there can be no strong living without them, but, apparently, some of them, at least, ought to be held with a fairly light hand, and with eyes wide open to see any further light that may come. It is really distressing to remember how many times in human history issues over which men have contended, even unto death, have turned out to be not great issues at all, and have finally showed themselves to be as ill-starred controversies as this one in which the great astronomer played his pathetic part. It might be a useful thing to remember that controversy, and especially bitter controversy, has often played a not-too-helpful part in history, and may even have resulted in more harm than good. The issues we are inclined to fight over have no guarantee of being great issues, and the thing we are contending for so strenuously today may not always look as big and important as it does now. Modesty and a few misgivings are not bad things to carry around with us. —from Onward. Practical Religion Sam Tucker, the hermit, has lived alone since his mother died many years ago. His house was big as houses go in little fishing villages in Newfoundland. Sam, being some-what superstitious, had not been upstairs since his mother’s death. Dust and cobwebs of years had gathered in the upper rooms, and the brick chimney had become defective. Sam was unaware of all this. When Sam went to bed at night he pulled the blankets over his head and ears to shut out all noises and sounds of the outer world. His hearing was not very keen, so Sam generally slept in peace and quietness. One night a little while ago a high wind coming in from the sea was howling through the village, and Sam’s house was creaking and cracking under the lash of the gale. Sam, to deaden the noise, muffled his head with the blankets and quilts. Under this protection Sam went off to sleep. At midnight he was awakened by strange noises. The house was cracking and tearing. To eliminate the sound and danger Sam dug his head OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
