On the contrary, their theories and speculations are proof, if any were needed, that the earth then existed, surely.

A man who boldly advocates a theory, fears to assert for fact that which all the world knows to be false.
_Mr.M._ If infant baptism were then practised, and had been received from the apostles, why should Origen assert it in his books, and in preaching, since everybody must have known it sufficiently.

Does not this prove that it was not generally believed?
_Dr.D._ Why, my dear sir, am I not every Sabbath telling how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures?
People do not need to be informed of it as a truth of history, but they need to be reminded of it, and to be exhorted in view of it.

So of every doctrine, and everything connected with religion.

We tell the plainest, the most familiar, truths to our church-members, continually; and the common repetition of those truths is, rather, a proof of their general acceptation than otherwise.
_Mr.M._ In a court of justice, such testimony as that of Origen would certainly be conclusive, in the case of a patent-right, or maritime discovery.