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Trent MacNamara, The Celestial Commons: Heaven and Earth in the Early United States, Journal of American History, Volume 111, Issue 3, December 2024, Pages 443–468, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaae180
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In 1820, Montgomery Bartlett taught astronomy for the first time. Taken aback by his students' “vulgar intellect” on the subject, he set out to write a schoolbook. It began with a series of questions based on those he had fielded in his class. Had astronomy emerged from astrology? Regrettably, yes. How far away were the stars? This was unknown, but the nearest ones were probably trillions of miles away. In that case, why did the stars “appear attached to a blue, concave canopy, and all of them at the same distance from us?” This was “probably an optical illusion.” Bartlett's students also turned to more fundamental questions. Did modern astronomy contradict the Bible? Only when we view God's power too narrowly, Bartlett argued. Rightly understood, the new astronomy evoked “such devout and sublime emotions of soul, that were the whole a mere delusion, it were a pity to detect the fallacy.”1
