The policy of the Pope was that Galileo should not be disturbed so long as he kept to his village home and taught merely the few scholars or "servants," as they called themselves, who often came to him; but these were to be taught mathematics, not astronomy. That he was even at the last under suspicion is shown that concealed in the mattress of the bed upon which he died were records of his latest discoveries concerning the revolution of the planets. Legal opposition was made as to his right to make a will, the claim being that he was a prisoner of the Inquisition at his death. For the same reason his body was not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. The Pope overruled the objection and he was buried in an obscure corner of the little cemetery of Saint Croce, the grave unmarked.
So the last few years of Galileo's life were years of comparative peace and quiet. He needed but little, and this little his few faithful, loving friends supplied. His death came painlessly, and his last moments were sustained by the faith that he would soon be free from the trammels of the flesh--free to visit some of the worlds that his telescope had brought so near to him.
Galileo was born the day that Michelangelo died; the year of his death was the year that Sir Isaac Newton, the discoverer of the law of gravitation, was born.
To know the mighty works of God; to comprehend His wisdom and majesty and power; to appreciate, in degree, the wonderful working of His laws, surely all this must be a pleasing and acceptable mode of worship to the Most High, to whom ignorance can not be more grateful than knowledge.
When a prominent member of Congress, of slightly convivial turn, went to sleep on the floor of the House of Representatives and suddenly awakening, convulsed the assemblage by demanding in a loud voice, "Where am I at?" he propounded an inquiry that is indisputably a classic.
With the very first glimmering of intelligence, and as far back as history goes, man has always asked that question, also three others:
A question implies an answer and so, coeval with the questioner, we find a class of Volunteers springing into being, who have taken upon themselves the business of answering the interrogations.