and more worthy of human intellect, than | But instantly, again, they were confronted what seems involved in this present ephem- with the fact that man was here, that anieral existence. And while Ingersoll and mals were here, that order reigned in the Underwood are lecturing the rabble system of nature, from the delicate geomehordes and catering to the depraved tastes trical and microscopical chasing of an of the lowest stratum of human nature by ocean shell, which no art can imitate, to ribald jokes in derogation of religion and the marvelous intellectual capabilities of the solemn verities of death and a future the many-chambered brain of a Shakelife, trying to demonstrate themselves and speare or Humboldt,-from the folded their applauding audiences to be what petals of a rosebud to the revolving movescarcely needs demonstration,-brutes that ments of the solar system. If there be no perish, it is a proud and sublime work personal, intelligent originator of all this for christian theists to vindicate their man-harmonious system of things, then how hood and dignity as sons of the God of the universe, made in His own image, and destined to reign with Him as princes of the Royal line forever and ever. Such labor of love, in comforting the cast down, by dispensing sunshine from heaven along the dark pathway of life, when contrasted with the degraded and degrading work of Ingersoll & Co., is like the grand employment of a Newton, a Kepler, or a Copernicus, contrasted with the low and sickening drudgery of the common scavenger and rag-picker. The one represents the glorious eagle which is never so proud and happy as when facing the sun and soaring toward heaven, while the other is a fit symbol of the buzzard, whose glory is in its shame, and whose fondest felicity is in feasting on filth. Will the reader, then, accompany the writer upon his pleasant, though possibly wearisome, search, and see if any new discoveries are yet accessible in this much-excavated field of biological, physiological and metaphysical investigation?

For centuries, prior to the last twentyfive or thirty years, scientific investigators who rejected religion and denied the possibility of a future life on materialistic or atheistic grounds, were nevertheless all at sea upon the question of man's origin. That he was here, with a capability of measuring the flights of the planets and of weighing the distant stars in balances, they could not well dispute. That he could have come here by chance, or without some intelligent originating power, seemed a supposition too preposterous to be entertained for a moment, except by those morbidly insane controversialists who cared more for personal triumph than for the claims of logic and reason. Atheists there were who denied the existence of a God because such a being was beyond the recognition of their physical senses.

came man, with his intellectual power, and how came animals with their cunning instincts? To talk of fortuity originating all this seemed a self-evident absurdity. Thus were the scientific opposers of religion overwhelmed with the evidence of their own senses and drifted from bank to bank of this turbulent stream of investigation, harrassed by the difficulties which beset their path and prevented any rational or satisfactory assurance concerning the problem of human life.

In all these years of struggle between christian philosphers and those intuitively skeptical investigators who doubted everything they could not see, hear, feel, taste or smell, religion had decidedly the best of the controversy, for it was only necessary for the Christian believer, or even the natural theist, to point to the fact that we exist, to silence the batteries and shut the mouths of the entire old school of atheists. Their scoffs at the Bible and its apparent contradictions, which were their principal stock in trade when driven to the wall on the question of God's existence, produced little effect upon the trained theological mind with its ever-ready resources of interpretation and biblical lore, by which apparent inconsistencies were transformed into harmonious truths not understood by the uninstructed; and thus chagrined at defeat they would recoil within themselves, gnashing their teeth at their own unsatisfactory solution of the problem of this two-fold mental and physical existence.

It was at this juncture of the irrepressible conflict between so-called science and religion that a new philosophic light burst upon the world-a light so intense that it dazed the skeptic for the moment and then caused his heart to leap for joy at the prospect of a new and unlooked-for triumph over religion and the Bible.

In 1858 that remarkable book by

Charles Darwin, called the Origin of Spe- |ists, had given in their adherence to the

ries, was announced in the English press. new hypothesis (subject, of course, to God's At first its full scope and object were not personal supervision of these organic understood or appreciated either by the changes), till matters had begun to assume opponents or advocates of religion. It such a dangerous look toward the cause of was not until the work had been quite ex-religion in general as to produce a widetensively circulated and read among spread and profound sense of alarm naturalists and free-thinkers in science and throughout Christendom, particularly religion that the alarm began to be sounded among the clergy who had given any among the clergy of both hemispheres and special attention to modern scientific into be spread broadcast by the denuncia- vestigations. There seemed to them no tion of the book in the pulpit and the middle ground possible to take, at this religious press. Soon the students of our juncture, between the positive transmutacolleges seized upon the new departure, tion or development of the higher from professional men of the liberal type, par- the lower, of all species, including man, ticularly of the medical fraternity, became and the absolute rejection of the entire imbued with this novel way of accounting hypothesis as a misconception of the facts for man's existence upon the earth as bet- of natural science, and thus relegating the ter than atheism and the impossible sup- question of the origin of species back to position of chance, till finally the intelligent the special acts of creation by the God of laymen of all our religious denominations, Nature as taught in the sacred record. asserting their rights to think for themselves, took up the Origin of Species, read its terrible concatenation of facts and inferences drawn from natural science, proving that man is but the lineal descendant of the ape, and commenced putting ugly questions to their respective pastors, urging upon them an attempt at reconciliation of these indisputable facts with the teachings of the Christian scriptures. This state of things forced the clergy to look seriously into this dangerous phase of opposition to the plain tea hings of the Bible, and this new mode of attack upon the cherished hopes inspired by the Christian religion. For, evident it seemed to be to the most casual reader of Mr. Darwin's work, that unless his hypothesis, of man's origin by development from lower animals, could be met and fairly refuted, it was worse than futile to advocate the Bible account of creation or the miraculous introduction of Christianity, even under the most liberal rules of biblical interpretation.

For a time this excitement continued without signs of abatement, and without an definite result having been arrived at among the clergy. In the meantime steadily but surely the tables were turning favorably to Mr. Darwin's side of the controversy among advanced scientific thinkers throughout the world,-the revolutionary book, which had caused all this commotion was rapidly translated into many of the languages of modern Europe, -a few of the clergymen of the Church of England, who were also educated natural

As was to have been expected in such a sifting controversy, a division soon commenced, even among the clergy, which has continued to increase in magnitude up to the present time, every year numbers of gospel ministers surrendering to Darwinism, till now it may be safely estimated that thousands of the best educated clergymeu of Europe and America are outspoken advocates of evolution, not strictly as Darwin advocates it, but evolution nevertheless, with the proviso that God used it as His method of creating the species. Those who doubt the correctness of this statement have only to read the lectures of Rev. Joseph Cook, Rev. Dr. McCosh, President Seelye, and others who take the same position as Prof. Asa Gray, who claims to be a firm believer in the Christian religion, and holds that evolution as taught by Darwin (with the proviso of intelligent design in every change effected) is in no way inconsistent with a belief in the Bible account of creation properly interpreted. To me, however, a more monstrous inconsistency than a belief in Christianity while accepting the theory of evolution in any shape or under any restrictions of theism, can scarcely be conceived. I will try to give my reasons for this conclusion as the argument advances.

First, it is proper to know that those who claim to believe in the existence and providence of a personal God, and who are yet forced, from the scientific facts arrayed by Darwin, to accept evolution, have generally so far modified Darwin's pur

poseless and designless views of develop- | under the laws of development thus incorment under natural selection, environment, porated in this simple creature, it was ensurvival of the fittest, etc., as to claim that abled to become the primeval parent of all God purposely adopted these laws as His the other organisms through God's conmethod of creating the species thus de- stant, ever-present supervision; and hence veloped, while a portion of these advocates the first variation of that simple creature, also include man among the transmuted by which it advanced to a form of life beings. Such believers in this theistic higher in the zoological scale, must have proviso excuse their acceptance of the doc- been the direct and efficient act of God himtrine by saying: "There can be no evolu- self as thus embodied in its vital and mental tion without first involution;" "there can be powers. The first animal therefore was no evolution without an evolver, or involu- made God's acting vicegerent in creating tion without an involver," and hence, if all other species, or else God continued Darwin's theory should finally be estab- personally to supervise every transmutalished it would simply be shown by science tion. So with each variation and every to be God's method of carrying on creation specific change, till the highest form of through the action of laws over which and man-ape, by natural selection, diverged in the operation of which, through each into the lowest type of man, thus perfecttransitional variation from a polyp up to ing the human form divine, and in this the human form, He exercised efficient manner did God make man out of the control and immanent supervision. This dust of the earth in His own image, and view, as they hope, differs so far from Dar- breathe into him the breath of life, in one win's outspoken theory of designless trans- day, or as theistic evolutionists interpret mutation, as to take away the curse and it, in one epoch of 100,000,000 years, more make it consonant with Christian theism. or less. But the truth is, it is substantially what is involved in Darwinism, not as its author interprets it, but as interpreted by some of his friends, including Prof. Asa Gray. For, according to Darwin's hypothesis, the first few simple beings, forming the basis of evolution, and out of which the myriad species up to man have been developed by natural selection, were the special work of creative intelligence, requiring the miraculous interposition of the Creator who "breathed" into them, not only the life and mental powers which made them living creatures, but who necessarily incorporated into such vital force and mental power the potentiality requisite to transfer the same to other beings with compound and complex interest. Thus, according to Darwin's view, logically and consistently carried out (not illogically as he describes the process of evolution), God, in breathing into one protozoan such living force and mental power, absolutely transferred a sufficient fraction of His own intelligence and vitality to stock the whole realm of living organisms which should afterwards arise as the lineal descendants of that first imperfectly developed animal. This being so, God must have involved himself in that first polyp, rhozopod, protozoan or moneron, embodied, so to speak, His own attributes within the vital and mental spark which animated its body, and by which,

This is a correct statement of theistic or purposive evolution as held by many of our prominent clergymen who, seeing no way of answering Mr. Darwin's facts, have tried in this manner to save a fraction of religion by almost getting down on their knees to modern science. Prior, however, to the appearance of the Origin of Species these same theologians believed firmly, and taught that, according to the Bible, God made man and the different animal specics by direct acts of creation or spoke them into existence out of inorganic matter by his Almighty fiat. But when the scientific facts collected by Mr. Darwin were sent broadcast into the world, it became evident to these same thoughtful investigators that the Bible account, if not absolutely erroneous, must be greatly modified by interpretation, unless such acknowledged facts of science were susceptible of some other explanation than the one given them by Mr. Darwin and his colaborators. No other interpretation of Nature being conceivable, hence the effort to retain a respectable hold upon the religion of the Bible, while at the same time accepting evolution, by a license in the interpretation of God's work of creation as recorded in scripture, which amounted to an actual rejection of miraculous acts of Divine wisdom and power, and a substitution for them of God's indirect acts of develop

ment through the processes known as natural selection and survival of the fittest. Being unable to explain these facts of natural history, except as teaching evolution in some form, or to answer the arguments of Darwin, Huxley and Haeckel, in favor of the transmutation of species, nothing seemed left to religious science but this resort to theistic evolution, rather than a total abandonment of the Bible. But really, to the mind of an impartial investigator it would seem more rational and consistent to reject the scriptures in toto as of human origin, if science actually teaches, as supposed, that all animals including man have descended from a polyp or protozoan; for certain it is that this whole conclusion is involved in the facts as presented, unless Mr. Darwin's interpretation can be shown to be without foundation in science. How a man can believe, as Prof. Asa Gray claims to do, that all species are developed from one "initial form of life" and at the same time believe in the Nicene creed and the New Testament, is more than I can imagine. Such a believer must hold that Jesus was the Son of God by being the son of an ape, at least on the side of His mother. But I forbear to carry out a thought so repugnant to the sensibilities of every Christian man.

a miracle to raise a Lazarus from the dead, after his body had undergone putrefaction, as to create an elephant out of a heap of sandstones. It is no more an effort of divine power to make a lion out of water, or out of a cake of ice, than to turn water into wine. If our theistic believers in the Nicene creed have adopted evolution to get rid of such a superabundance of miracles as would be involved in the direct creation of the different animal species, then in the name of consistency they should repudiate the Nicene creed and with it the entire mission of Christ and the apostles, since John the Divine tells us that if all the miraculous works wrought by Christ had been recorded, the world would not contain the books that might have been written, which would at least equal the number of miracles needed for all the different species from the moneron up to man! But what is still worse for this objection to miraculous creations, Mr. Darwin assures us, that it has taken myriads of slight but distinct spontaneous variations, each saved up by natural selection, to produce any important specific change in animal structure. Now if, as all advocates of theistic evolution maintain, God specially controls or directs each variation to this specific end, it is equivalent to a direct creative One of the principal reasons urged by act, as much so as was the miraculous proMr. Darwin, Prof. Gray, and all evolution duction of Darwin's first simple form out writers, against the probability of the of inorganic matter. Hence instead of cne direct creation of the different species, is miracle for each animal species as biblical the vast number of miracles throughout science requires, it involves myriads of Nature which such a supposition would in- miracles or their exact equivalent, in sovolve, while the theory of development, called spontaneous variations specially they claim, involves no miracle, save the supervised for each specific change. Theone at the start necessary for the creation istic evolution, therefore, unless God's of the first simple being, out of which, as connection with the course of Nature is lineal descendants, all subsequent species merely nominal and not immanently causal, are supposed to have been developed by in any effective sense, complicates the work natural selection. This was, doubtless, of miraculous or creative intervention a one of the principal difficulties which in- thousand, possibly a million fold. And so fluenced Joseph Cook, Dr. McCosh and far as Mr. Darwin himself, and his followscores of the learned clergy, to adopt the-ers are concerned, they admit at least one istic evolution in combination with the Nicene creed, which they all claim still to believe with unshaken faith. Yet they seem never to have thought that the Nicene creed requires them to believe in the thousands, possibly, tens of thousands of miracles wrought by Christ and the apostles in confirmation of their divine mission, and which necessarily constitute a part of the Christian religion indorsed by that same Nicene creed. It is as much of

miraculous intervention at the start, for the production of the first simple organism, on which to begin evolution; and as the God who "breathed" into that first form was infinite in power and resource, it is no more tax upon such unlimited facilities miraculously to create ten thousand different species than to create one. As such a God, moreover, is necessarily as immutable as He is infinite in power and wisdom, it is but consistency to suppose