Thank you for the information re White; it's good to have extra sets of
eyes. Ascribing the precise date of creation to Usher which is a bit of the
folklore of the history of science and may have originated with White. If
you follow attempts to pinpoint creation (and by extension, armageddon) in
real time it leads at least back to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The date was
calculated through astronomical observations and assumptions about what the
configurations of the planets would have been at the instant of creation.

My own interest is the development of ideas of biological evolution and how
they translated into social policy. I would expect to find a good deal of
wrestling with this in Twain since his life spans a critical period in the
transition between a view of the universe which assumed intelligent design
and one which rejected it.

Martha Sherwood

On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 6:06 AM Steve Courtney <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Clemens's clerical pal, the Rev. Joe Twichell of Hartford, was often at
> Cornell to preach (because of his longtime friendship with Cornell
> benefactor Dean Sage) and was a good friend of White's. In 1905, after
> services at Sage Chapel, Twichell and White lunched and discussed Clemens's
> "What is Man?"-- the book Clemens called his "private gospel."
>
>
> Albert Bigelow Paine, in his biography, described Clemens's attitude
> toward the science vs. religion book -- you can read it here:
>
>
> https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/twain/mark/paine/chapter282.html
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Steve
>
>
> Steve Courtney
> Curatorial Special Projects Coordinator
> The Mark Twain House & Museum
> 351 Farmington Avenue
> Hartford, Connecticut 06105
> 860-302-8969
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Barbara Schmidt <
> [log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, May 9, 2019 5:32 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject:
>
> Mark Twain owned a copy of White's _A History of the Warfare of Science
> with Theology in Christendom._.  A two-volume set published in 1901.  The
> volumes are filled with his marginalia. Among such comments are "Doubtless
> theology & dysentery are two of the most enervating diseases a person can
> have"  and also referred to the works as "most amusing." These volumes are
> in the Mark Twain Papers at Berkeley. The books are considered to be the
> main inspiration for the final chapters of "The Secret History of
> Eddypus."  Alan Gribben's _Mark Twain's Library: A Reconstruction_ reprints
> the text of Twain's marginalia.
>
> Barb
>