The good missionary says, in Grimston's quaint translation, "Whatsoever Lactantius saith, wee that live now at Peru, and inhabite that parte of the worlde which is opposite to Asia and theire Antipodes, finde not ourselves to bee hanging in the aire, our heades downward and our feete on high." IV.

THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
But at an early period another subject in geography had stirred the minds of thinking men--THE EARTH'S SIZE.

Various ancient investigators had by different methods reached measurements more or less near the truth; these methods were continued into the Middle Ages, supplemented by new thought, and among the more striking results were those obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester II.

They handed down to after-time the torch of knowledge, but, as their reward among their contemporaries, they fell under the charge of sorcery.
Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution deserves to be given as an example of a very curious theological error, chancing to result in the establishment of a great truth.

The second book of Esdras, which among Protestants is placed in the Apocrypha, was held by many of the foremost men of the ancient Church as fully inspired: though Jerome looked with suspicion on this book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced in that view.