In
that year appeared a comet which again plunged Europe into alarm.
In every European country this alarm was strong, but in Germany
strongest of all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken
multitudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by Heerbrand
preaching at Tubingen, and both these from thousands of other
pulpits, Catholic and Protestant, throughout Europe. In the midst
of all this din and outcry a few men quietly but steadily observed
the monster; and Tycho Brahe announced, as the result, that its
path lay farther from the earth than the orbit of the moon. Another
great astronomical genius, Kepler, confirmed this. This distinct
beginning of the new doctrine was bitterly opposed by theologians;
they denounced it as one of the evil results of that scientific
meddling with the designs of Providence against which they had so
long declaimed in pulpits and professors' chairs; they even brought
forward some astronomers ambitious or wrong-headed enough to
testify that Tycho and Kepler were in error[201]
Nothing could be more natural than such opposition; for this simple
announcement by Tycho Brahe began a new era.
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