is notably so with Professor Huxley, the most eminent of living agnostics. He takes the ground that modern evolution, as taught by Darwin and Ernst Häckel and himself, is as demonstrably proved "as the Copernican system of the universe," while most evolutionists, and among them Charles Darwin, the father of the theory, only claim a high degree of probability for it. Why do not these agnostics act consistently, and say they do not know the origin of man? Why does not Mr. Ingersoll say, "I do not know whether the apostles wrote the gospels or not. I do not know whether Christ performed the miracles recorded or not." He is not satisfied with leaving the matter on purely agnostic grounds, but says he knows Christ never did cure the sick or blind or lame or raise the dead. You see, candid reader, how positive he can be about things that he never saw or did himself. He is certain that no one ever saw or did things that he and his agnostic brethren have not seen or done. Everything must be verified before they will believe. If you ever visited Africa or Iceland you must "verify" it, because most people never saw these countries and never will. Livingstone is dead, and what he recorded may be all a myth, because "many men are mistaken." Stanley may never return to verify his travels, and he could not verify them for any one but himself anyway; so the Colonel and his school will be compelled to verify it for themselves or accept their testimony about the Dark Continent, and I suspect they will conclude to accept what Stanley and Bishop Taylor say about it, rather than go out as missionaries to propagate agnosticism among the natives, lest they become poisoned with the leaven of Christianity by Taylor and others.

I can not close without a single reference to Mr. Ingersoll's present attitude to Christianity as foreshadowed in this late article in the North American Review. I think it would be difficult, from- most of his lectures and written articles for a few years past, not to consider him an avowed atheist; but in this late paper he gives evidence of a marked change. From one or two paragraphs it is appa

rent that in his religious evolution he is hard by the borders of modern Unitarianism. He is either nearing them, or they are approaching agnosticism. Let me quote (from page 410 of North American Review for April, 1889): “If one denies the existence of devils, does he for that reason cease to believe in Jesus Christ? Is it not possible to imagine that a great and tender soul living in Palestine nearly twenty centuries ago was misunderstood? Is it not within the realm of the possible that His words have been inaccurately reported? Is it not within the range of the probable that legend and rumor and ignorance and zeal have deformed His life and belittled His character?" Now this is orthodox Unitarianism of to-day. No man can read their current theology now or hear their ministers preach, without recognizing that the Colonel has either been reading or sitting under their preaching of late. I am glad of it. I think he gives signs of return from his long wanderings. I shall not be greatly surprised to hear of him filling some Unitarian pulpit soon, and not much more surprised to hear of his becoming a liberal orthodox preacher before he dies. The world moves! There are wonderful undercurrents of religious thought about Christ and His place in creation and the redemption of this world.

EVOLUTION.

I have been requested by a number of gentlemen of this city to give a few lectures on Evolution, in view of the interest recently awakened on this subject. I propose to discuss, in a general way, the much lauded theory of Modern Evolution, and show its utter fallaciousness as taught by its leading authors. Under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association.

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AS THE subject is somewhat abstruse and burdened with a peculiar nomenclature, I have concluded, for the sake of as much brevity and clearness as possible, to commit my lectures to paper, which I know will in some measure lessen their interest. I also do so that I may not be falsely reported. Your indulgence and candid hearing are craved. As preliminary to this discussion it may

be pertinent to call attention to the distinguished authors who have originated the idea, and are advocating its claims on the credulity of this age. Charles Darwin may rightfully be regarded as the father of modern Evolution, so evidently so is this that the theory has earned the name of "The Darwinian Theory." He is the author of the following works: "Origin of Species," "The Descent of Man," "Animals and Plants," and some others of minor importance. Another distinguished author on Evolution, and the most eminent disciple of Darwin, is E. Häckel, Professor of Natural History in the University of Jena. He is the author of the following large works: "History of Creation" and "The Evolution of Man;" and Professor Huxley, the author of "Elementary Physiology" and sundry lectures, all aiming to establish Evolution. These are considered to be the ablest exponents of the system. I shall therefore pay my principal respects to them. I desire to say that these gentlemen have made many valuable contributions to science, and the world is largely indebted to them for their indefatigable labors; but that their researches have established the DOGMA of Evolution as taught by them with such persistent zeal the majority of intelligent and cultured men of this age do not at all believe, and some of these scientists teach that all the living species of men and animals have come into being by spontaneous generation without the aid of creative power, purpose, or plan. This is Häckel's theory, and favored by Huxley. The other theory, differing from this, is that the first being or few specimens of a very low order were the result of creative power, as a starter of all living beings, animals and men, and ever since that there has been no supervising plan of a superior intelligence. The work has all been accomplished by blind law, under the law of "natural selection," or "The Survival of the Fitest." In a word, that the race of men have come down to their present high estate through a long line of ancestors, beginning with unorganized Protoplasm, or Bathybius, or Bioplasm, or Moneron, running through a long line of ganoids, or fishes, tortoises, horses, dogs, monkeys, and

apes, our nearest living ancestor. This is Darwinianism. You laugh, gentlemen, but this they proclaim with all soberness, and I will not say insincerity. These same great scientists do thus declare without a blush, so far as their written works indicate. I think it was Cicero who said: "He did not see how two jugglers could look each other in the face without laughing!"

A few words about the terms employed in these books and lectures. Protoplasm literally means first made; it is a jelly-like substance supposed to contain life; Bioplasm means first life, or the beginning of life, and is similar to Protoplasm; Bathybius is a Greek word, meaning deep sea. Mr. Huxley, the discoverer, says this about it: "Bathybius is a vast sheet of living matter enveloping the whole earth beneath the seas." In honor of Professor Häckel he named it "Bathybius Häckelu." This deep sea ooze he made the bridge between the organic and inorganic world. The great infidel, Strauss, went into ecstasies over this supposed discovery, and used it as his strongest argument against miracles or the supernatural. Of course Professor Häckel applauded this discovery, because of the vast issues that were dependent upon it. But the greatest living physiologists like Dr. Carpenter and Lionel Beale rejected Huxley's testimony as a matter of fact. Dr. Wallich, 1869, presented evidence that this sea ooze, or Bathybius, has nothing in it to confirm Huxley's assumptions, and recent deep sea soundings have given their verdict against Mr. Huxley's pretensions; and finally, in the American Journal of Science and Arts, you will find (Oct. 1877, pp. 267, 268) the last concession that this celebrated Bathybius contains nothing but "the sulphate of lime!" Poor Strauss did not live long enough to hear Professor Huxley recant. His Bathybius has been the subject of ridicule and jest among literary and scientific men for several years last past. He has been very reticent in his recent lectures on the subject of Bathybius and its sisters, Protoplasm and Moneron, of other evolutionists. It has been remarked in his New York lectures that he was very shy about touching the main objection to evolution;

viz., bridging the immense chasm between living and not living matter, his first bridge utterly broke down under its own absurdity and want of scientific evidence. Spontaneous generation is in the same category of assumptions, as we will see further on.

The word Moneron, employed so much by Professor Häckel, is best explained by him. He says: "The monera are the simplest of all known organisms, being mere lumps of pure albumen, without organs or heterogeneous parts," and probably not larger than a pin's head and living at the bottom of the ocean, where Huxley discovered his Bathybius.

To show you that I have not overstated nor misstated the teachings of these gentlemen, I quote: Mr. Darwin says (Origin of Species, pp. 420, 425, 428): “There is a grandeur in his view [evolution] of life, with its several. powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one." "The similar framework of bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of a horse, and innumerable other such facts at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with slow and successive modifications." "In regard to the members of each great kingdom, such as vertebrata, articulata, etc., we have distinct evidence that within each kingdom all the members are descended from a single progenitor." "All the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian Epoch."

Professor Häckel (History of Creation, Vol. I, pp. 48, 75) says: "But a truly natural and consistent view of organisms can assume no supernatural act of creation for even those simplest original forms, but only a coming into existence by spontaneous generation. From Darwin's view of the nature of species we arrive therefore at the natural theory of development." "The fundamental idea which must necessarily lie at the bottom of all natural theories of development is that of a gradual development of all (even the most perfect) organisms out of a single or out of a very few quite simple and quite imperfect