68, 69.
V.THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
It would be hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical truth without referring to one passage more in the history of the Protestant Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way of the simplest statement of geographical truth which conflicted with the words of the sacred books.
In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at Geneva on the charge of Arianism.

Servetus had rendered many services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, in which Judea was spoken of, not as "a land flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance with the truth, as, in the main, meagre, barren, and inhospitable.

In his trial this simple statement of geographical fact was used against him by his arch-enemy John Calvin with fearful power.

In vain did Servetus plead that he had simply drawn the words from a previous edition of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this statement was a simple geographical truth of which there were ample proofs: it was answered that such language "necessarily inculpated Moses, and grievously outraged the Holy Ghost."(38) (38) For Servetus's geographical offense, see Rilliet, Relation du Proces criminel contre Michel Servet d'apres les Documents originaux, Geneva, 1844, pp.

42,43; also Willis, Servetus and Calvin, London, 1877, p.325.The passage condemned is in the Ptolemy of 1535, fol.41.It was discreetly retrenched in a reprint of the same edition.
In summing up the action of the Church upon geography, we must say, then, that the dogmas developed in strict adherence to Scripture and the conceptions held in the Church during many centuries "always, every where, and by all," were, on the whole, steadily hostile to truth; but it is only just to make a distinction here between the religious and the theological spirit.