Foreword

There are no more important issues before the thinking people of our day than those which deal with the relation between God's two books, the Written Word and the book of nature. No one can hold wrong views on the one of these great revelations of God without these wrong views' perverting his views of the other; for all people at least try to be consistent in their thinking.

To-day the chief points in controversy between those who accept the Bible at its face value and those who wish to amend its teachings so as to make them accord with man's theories about the book of nature, center about the creation and the world-catastrophe of the Deluge. Indeed, the latter subject is the key to the former. If there has really been a great world-catastrophe, as is clearly affirmed by both the Bible and the records of the rocks, then the theory of organic evolution is only a piece of childish nonsense; for all its strongest supports are nonexistent. And to us the evidence is fast becoming overwhelming that a true view of the geological facts and a careful attention to the strictly logical and scientific methods of proving our beliefs regarding the past history of the plants and animals of our globe, will protect us forevermore from the fooleries which have muddled the thinking of two generations of men of science.

The following pages are admirably adapted to aid the reader in a solution of these problems. They deal with the points that are most essential; and they deal with these points in a very clear and convincing manner. There is no pussyfooting in reference to the essential points in the present controversy, and no ambiguity in the statements relating to the facts of nature as we now know them. Above all, there is here none of the mental camouflage by which many people think they can be "all things to all men," and dodge the real questions before us. If a man does not believe in the first chapters of Genesis, including 813230

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the seventh and eighth as well as the first and second and third, we must not be surprised if he does not take much stock in the last chapters of the Revelation. And if he thinks he can be a good Christian and still believe that man has evolved from animal ancestors, we must not expect him to have any very fine sense of his obligations toward his Creator. In short, the key to all the great outstanding questions of the day is to be found in our attitude toward that primal portion of God's revelation to mankind which conditions and shapes all that follows.

I commend this work by my two friends; for I can not think of any subjects of more importance for the public, and I do not know of any two men who are better prepared to handle these subjects in an interesting and informing

manner.

Stanborough Park,

GEORGE MCCREADY PRICE.

Watford, Herts, England.

Preface

Evolution is not an abstract subject, with no more relation to the workaday world than Einstein's theory or the diameter of the moon; instead, it has the most direct and far-reaching effect on our views of the present and the future life, and our relations to our fellow man and to God.

The renowned Joseph Le Conte, an evolutionist, who wrote the most authoritative work on the relation of evolution to religion, says regarding this theory: "Its truth or falseness, its acceptance or rejection, is no trifling matter, affecting only one small corner of the thoughtrealm. On the contrary, it affects profoundly the foundations of philosophy, and therefore the whole domain of thought. It determines the whole attitude of the mind toward nature and God.”

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Proceeding on the belief that the Bible is indeed the very Word of God, and that specifically the book of Genesis, which our fathers and we have taken as literal, gives the true account of the beginnings of our world, we shall endeavor in the first section of this book to show that the various facts of nature alleged to prove evolution do not prove it at all. With this accomplished, we might rightfully call our task completed; for if evolution be demolished, the creation story stands by default - there are only two great views regarding our world, the mutually exclusive doctrines of evolution and creation.

From the earliest times, the Genesis story has been the accepted account so far as Christian peoples are concerned. Evolution comes along as a counter-explanation.. Therefore the burden of proof rests on the exponent of evolution. The believer in a long-accepted doctrine is under no obligation to prove the correctness of his views; rather, the apostle of the new teaching must prove his case. And it is a sign of the greater wisdom to hold to the old until the new is established beyond a reasonable doubt.

1 "Evolution and Its Relation to Religious Thought": 3, 4.