The enormous ages which have been credited to these remains are well illustrated by the discovery of a skeleton at New Orleans while digging for the gas works. From the depth of the stratum in which it was found it was estimated by scientists at the age of 57,000 years. Soon after, the gunwale of the skeleton's Kentucky flat boat was found in the same stratum, and the age therefore of the remains was reduced from 57,000 to 50 years. The evidences from peat bogs, stalagmite formations, stone, iron and bronze tools are all now considered unreliable by scientists. So many exposures of mistakes in the estimate of age from these have been made, that the whole is looked upon with suspicion. Instance after instance might be given.
It has been claimed that we can arrange these past races in an ascending order as they worked in stone, bronze, or iron, in their successive history. This is a false theory. We have all these "ages" existing to-day. On the other hand, Dr. Livingstone found no stone age in Africa. Dr. Schliemann found in the ruins of Troy the bronze age below the stone age. The early Egyptians used bronze, the later ones stone tools. In the Chaldean tombs all these are found together. Europe had the metal age while America had the stone age. (Creation and Evolution. Prof. Townsend.)
These prehistoric races to which Evolution points us as representing man in his early state, do not represent that early world. They are found at the outer limits of the world and not at the acknowledged center whence man came. They are, in short, what we find to-day at the outlying regions of earth. They therefore, are exceptional peoples and not representative of the world at that time, or now.
The dynasties of Egypt were once cited against the Bible narrative, but these have been reduced to moderate figures. A thousand years was taken off by one discoverer recently from the age of the middle kingdom. There is a question whether the Egyptian dynasties were successive or in some cases contemporary. There is also the well-known fact that the Egyptians had years of varying length. They often counted dynasties by years of three months and also of a month! Dr. Flinders Petrie lately discovered in the tombs of the kings, preceding the first dynasty of Egypt at Abydos, Grecian pottery of Mycean clay, and this in a tomb estimated to date from 5,400 B. C.! (Atlantic Monthly, October, 1900.)
The same kind of estimating is now being done from the Assyrian tablets and their records. We must remember these old kings were great boasters and liars, too. We don't know the basis of their calculations. Perhaps Assyria also had three month years. If their method was like Egypt's, and they were connected as we know by much intercourse and literature, we may expect like inaccuracy. The ancient dates given in the inscriptions found in Nuffar recently, are already suspected by scholars. The date for the temple uncovered there was 3,200 B. C. This number is the product of forty multiplied by eighty; evidently a round number for eighty generations, and not at all a careful or exact chronological statement.
However, let us compare the two accounts, the Bible and the Assyrian. The one precise in statement, accurate in ten thousand points as demonstrated, with us for thousands of years, trusted and tried. The other inexact, mythical in its legends, having all the marks of inaccuracy, just discovered, made by people we know nothing of and having no character to speak of, and full of vain boastings and absurd claims. Which is the true and which the false? Let the jury decide. We will abide the verdict.
Prof. A. H. Sayce of Oxford, writes: "The light that has come from the remnants of the past has been fatal to the pretenses of critical skepticism. The discoveries of Abydos have discredited its methods and results. They have shown that where they can be tested they prove to be absolutely worthless. It is only reasonable to conclude that methods and results, that thus break down under the test of monumental discovery, must equally break down in other departments of history where no such test can be applied. It is not the discoveries of the higher critics, but the old traditions which have been confirmed by archaeological discovery." (Homiletic Review, March, 1901.) This statement is made by one of the most able archaeologists and semitic scholars in the world.
The age of man on earth has much testimony from science agreeing with the Bible account. From many the following are cited:
Dr. J. A. Zahm, the distinguished scholar, says, "I am disposed to attribute to man an antiquity of about ten thousand years. It seems likely that the general consensus of chronologists will ultimately fix on a date which shall be below rather than above ten thousand years as the nearest approximate to the age of our race." (The Bible, Science and Faith, p. 311.) He quotes many other authorities.
Prof. Winchell tells us, "The very beginnings of our race are still almost in sight." (Sketches of Creation.) Dawson thinks man has been on earth about seven thousand years. Geology agrees that man did not exist before the ice age. The stone age is fixed at about seven thousand years ago by others.
Professor George Frederick Wright tells us, "The glacial period did not close more than ten thousand years ago. This shortening of our conception of the ice age renders glacial man a comparatively modern creature. The last stage of the excessive unstability of the earth was not so very long ago and continued down to near the introduction of man." (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1902.)
S. R. Pattison, F. G. S., tells us, "Science shows to us a number of converging probabilities which point to man's first appearance along with great animals about 8,000 years ago." (Age and Origin of Man Geologically Considered, Am. Tr. Soc., p. 29.)
Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, professor of natural science in Erlangen, thus sums up the evidence from geology as to man: "(1) The age of man is small, extending only to a few thousand years. (2) Man appeared suddenly: the most ancient man known to us is not essentially different from the now living man. (3) Transitions from the ape to the man, or the man to the ape, are nowhere found. The conclusion we are led to is that the Scripture account of man, which is one and self-consistent, is true.... This account of man we accept by faith, because it is revealed by God, is supported by adequate evidence, solves the otherwise insoluble problems, not only of science and history, but of inward experience, and meets our deepest need.... The more it is sifted and examined the more well founded and irrefragable does it prove to be." (Age and Origin of Man, Am. Tr. Soc., pp. 55-56.)
12. SAVAGE RACES.
Evolution delights to compare savage peoples alternately with present civilized races and with the brute. Prof. Conn says, "There is a greater difference between a Newton and a Hottentot, than between the Hottentot and the orang-outang." He fails to notice, or state, that the first is a difference of degree only, and the latter a difference of kind. It would be possible to develop a Hottentot into a philosopher, but no attempt is ever dreamed of, to change an orang-outang into a Hottentot. On the other hand, the lowest savages have under culture shown their human inheritance of faculties beyond the brute. Two pigmies taken to Italy learned to speak Italian in two years with fluency. They showed themselves superior to many European children, and one became proficient in music. The skill of this race with poisoned arrows, pits for game, and cultivation of various kinds, is well known.
The savage races show the opposite of evolution. They are races in ruins. Max Mueller says, "What do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter in their history? They may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive may be for all we know a relapse into savagery, or corruption of what was something more rational and intelligible in former ages." This estimate of this great scholar is attested by facts. Where to-day is the Hindu race that could build the Taj Mahal? What Greek race to-day could reproduce the architecture or statuary of their ancestors? The ruins of all eastern and many western lands point to fallen races as well as ruined structures. The world's history is that of the fall of great nations such as Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, Rome, in all of which are sad examples of architecture and peoples alike in decay.
13. THE ARGUMENT FROM HISTORY.
History is appealed to to show the progress of man and his continuance in the evolutionary line since his origin in the brute. Our present civilization is pointed to and compared with the past and we are told that this is the result of evolution.
Some remarks of a preliminary kind are called for here. It is to be remembered that history does not cover a very long period, that the record is often broken, and that the facts are often very uncertain. Large sections of the world we know historically nothing or little of, such as Asia and Africa. We must remember that progress is confined mostly to Europe and America and these form but a third of the population of the world. Also that European progress is a comparatively recent matter. We are now considering the entire history of the race and must take in these vast outside regions to arrive at correct conclusions. To judge the entire progress of mankind from a short-sighted view of a limited portion is as unscientific as it is unscriptural.
We must also remember that Europe owes its progress to the influence of Christianity. For to-day it is the Christian nations only that have progress and the most Christian have the most progress. No fact is better seen or proven. Lange states, "Among human tribes left to themselves, the higher man never comes out of the lower. Apparent exceptions do ever, on close examination, confirm the universality of the rule in regard to particular peoples, while the claim, as made for the world's general progress, can only be urged in opposition by ignoring the supernal aids of revelation that have ever shown themselves directly or collaterally on the human path." (Commentary on Genesis, p. 355.) We have seen that so far as present savage races are concerned they have made no progress, and semi-civilized races, such as the Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus have retrograded.
We need also to consider the vast and great civilizations which existed in remote antiquity as is now revealed by archaeology. The recent discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia and Egypt show vast empires of culture as well as national extension and power, and that their earlier culture was the greatest. So Prof. Hilprecht, of the University of Pennsylvania, testifies of Babylonia: "The flower of Babylonian art is found at the beginning of Babylonian history." (Recent Researches in Bible Lands, p. 88.) Horace Bushnell tells us, "All great ruins are but a name for greatness in ruins."
It is to Egypt we must go for the earliest records of human civilization. Here the account of Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, gives us the facts: "The earliest culture and civilization to which the monuments bear witness was in fact already perfect. It was full-grown. The organization of the country was complete. The arts were known and practiced. Egyptian culture as far as we know at present has no beginning." (Recent Researches in Bible Lands, pp. 101, 102.) "The older the culture, the more perfect it is found to be. The fact is a very remarkable one, in view of modern theories of development and of the evolution of civilization out of barbarism. Whatever may be the reason, such theories are not borne out by the discoveries of archaeology. Instead of the progress one should expect, we find retrogression and decay. Is it possible the Biblical view is right after all and that civilized man has been civilized from the outset?" (Homiletic Review, June, 1902.) Prof. Flinders Petrie tells us that the Great Pyramid bears on its stones the marks of the solid and tubular drill, edged with stone as hard as diamond, and cutting one-tenth of an inch at a revolution, and showing no sign of wear. They had also straight and circular saws. The same building reveals scientific and astronomical knowledge equal in some respects to modern science.
Not only were the past civilizations great, but, in many respects, far above the present. So that the race has even fallen from higher levels. Lecky thus writes of the Greeks: "Within the narrow limits and scant populations of the Greek states, arose men, who in almost every conceivable form of genius, in philosophy, in epic, dramatic and lyric poetry, in written and spoken eloquence, in statesmanship, in sculpture, in painting, and probably in music, attained the highest levels of human perfection." (History of European Morals, p. 408.) Galton says of the same civilization: "The millions of Europe, breeding as they have for two thousand years, have never produced the equal of Socrates and Phidias. The average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, nearly two grades higher than our own; that is, about as much as our race is above the African negro." (Hereditary Genius, p. 320.)
It does seem as if such testimony of these great scholars should make us not only chary of the theory which claims ever upward and onward progress, but also more modest in our boasted modern progress and position. Prof. Frederick Starr of the Anthropological department of Chicago University, says that the American race is reverting to the Indian state. He bases this on measurements of faces of 5,000 children. This is a dismal outlook. It is not what Evolution has promised us. The followers of Evolution have reason to be indignant at such a turn in its course. However, we may comfort them and ourselves with the hope that if Evolution fails us we have other resources.
EVOLUTION AND RELIGION.
Consciousness of God and the hereafter is the great distinction between man and brute. This is the basis of all religion. Of this Evolution gives the origin in the dreams of animals.
According to that department of the evolutionary theory popularly called Higher Criticism, all religion, including Israel's and Christianity, was derived from fetishism and from that it developed to animism, and so to polytheism and finally monotheism. But the lowest savages have, according to anthropology, the belief in a Supreme Being. Andrew Lang says, "It is among the lowest savages that the Supreme Beings are regarded as eternal, moral, powerful." (Making of Religion, p. 206.) Fetishism and animism are processes of decay, says Dr. John Smith, quoting Hartmann, DeRouge, Renouf, Lang and others. (Integrity of Scripture, p. 68.) Traces of monotheism are found in China, India, Egypt and elsewhere. In all nations is this decay found save in one, Israel.
It is further found that mankind had an original theistic religion common to the race, which is just what the Bible teaches. All the evidence is to the effect that the further back we go, the purer the religions are found to be. The earliest Romans were more pure in religion than the later people. The early Greeks more so than the more recent. The early handwritings give a purer and more theistic religion than the later books. Dr. Jacob Chamberlain thus sums up the evidence for the Hindu Vedas: "They all teach the Godhead is one, that he is good, that man is in a state of sin, not at peace with the Holy One, that man is in need of holiness and purity, that there can be no harmony between sinful man and a holy God unless sin is in some way expiated and expurgated, and that this is the greatest and most worthy end of existence." (Northfield Echoes, August, 1900, p. 256.)
The ruins of Assyria and Egypt point to a religion resembling that of the Israelites. So far is this noticed that some have said that Moses copied much of what he taught Israel from them. This conclusion is not necessary. The fact is that man had a deposit of truth at the beginning, and all men had the same. Both Moses and Egypt and Assyria therefore, had much of what survived from that early revelation. The fact here stated agrees with the Bible account and not with Evolution.
"The study of the mythology and philosophy of the heathen world does not show an evolutionary progress to a higher state, but the reverse." (Francis M. Bruner in The Evolution Theory.) Christianity has not been a development of these religions, for it is and was, antagonistic to them at every point. It was an opposing force introduced suddenly and utterly at variance in every particular with all about it.
Sir M. Monier said in an address in 1887: "There can be no greater mistake than to force these non-christian writings into conformity with some scientific theory of development, and then point to the Christian's Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious evolution. So far from this, these non-christian books are all developments in the wrong direction. They begin with some flashes of true light and end in utter darkness."
EVOLUTION AND ETHICS.
Evolution has a system or systems of Ethics. It traces the beginning of the sense of right and wrong to the instincts of animals, such as the parental instinct, the recognition of marital rights, and the right to respective properties such as nests and burrows. So that the animal, or man, came to see that it was best on all accounts to be good to oneself and others. So Mr. Spencer's definition of right is the happiness of oneself, one's offspring and others. Acts are good or bad as they increase happiness or misery. He ignores the moral instinct and exalts expediency and utility. This is the level of the uncivilized or savage races.
Dr. James Thompson Bixby of Leipsic, makes humanity the goal of Evolution's ethics. "The test of what is morally good is the tendency of the given motive to help forward the progress of the race toward the ideal humanity." (Ethics of Evolution, p. 212.) Every Bible believer will see how far short these fall of the standard of holiness and happiness the Bible places before us. But when or where did any people ever aim to help forward the "ideal perfection of humanity" who did not have the mighty impulse which the Bible, and only the Bible, gives to that object? There is not even the sense of brotherhood necessary for the motive. To point natural man to that is to ask him to act outside his nature.
The law of the Struggle for Existence never taught Christian ethics. The self-sacrificing Christian has something which never came from Evolution. The Cross is the final test of Evolution. By it that theory and all other false theories are weighed in the balances and found wanting. The struggle for existence is the law of self and is the antithesis of the Cross, which is the very opposite of the struggle for existence. Nor is the struggle for existence the law of the lower creature. That law is to bring forth fruit, to propagate their species. That is the plant's goal; when it has so done it retires or dies. The little bird will struggle more fiercely for its young than for its food, or even for its life, which it imperils often to save its brood. Below the unfallen creation and regenerated humanity is the unregenerated selfish man. Not Evolution but Revolution can create Christian ethics. History does not present an instance of progress in ethics save as aided by the Bible.
EVOLUTION AND CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
In undertaking to account for man, Evolution must account for the fact of Christian experience. Conversion revolutionizes a man. It turns him against his natural likes and dislikes. He even turns against himself and the selfish becomes unselfish. This is not development, for that operates according to the nature of the thing. Develop a wolf and you may get a dog. Develop man from the savage state and you may have the condition of the Greek in the highest state of culture and yet in the lowest state of vice. Introduce Christian experience and you have Christianity with all the civilization which proceeds and flows from it.
There is no such consistent body of testimony for any fact, science or truth as there is for Christian experience. It is the same in all ages, in all lands and in all classes of society, and in all circumstances of life. This evidence is perfectly legitimate and must be considered by the student of human life and character. Let Evolution then account for Conversion which changes man's inner nature, and gives a life which lives contrary to natural human instincts and conduct; and Christian hopes which yearn for deliverance from sin and self and long for the highest spiritual state and hasten to meet the holy and all-seeing God.
The missions of our great cities as well as those of the foreign field are full of witnesses for the transforming effect of Christian experience. The author of this book can vouch for the following from personal knowledge. A business man in Illinois became addicted partly from use in disease to alcohol and the use of morphine and also cocaine. He used all these and in excessive quantities; as much as forty grains of morphine in a day. He tried seven "cures." He visited Europe to consult specialists. He spent in all over $15,000 in seeking a cure and all in vain. By the persuasions of Christians he was led to seek relief in prayer and experienced what Christians call conversion and was immediately delivered from all his appetites. The author of this saw him three months after and found him a sober man and without any desire for drink or drugs. He saw him again a year after and he was still rejoicing in full deliverance. Since beginning this book, a correspondence was had to verify the case still further, and he is reported as follows: "In January, 1899, his weight was 113 pounds. In January, 1901, his weight was 183 pounds. He is an official member of a prominent church, a director of the Young Men's Christian Association and a great worker in both." No evolution can account for such a change. It is as great a miracle as cleansing the leper.
Prof. George Romanes of Oxford, was, it is said, brought back from infidelity to faith by the letters of a Japanese missionary friend, dealing with experimental and practical religion. Evolution asks for facts. Here are facts, and they tell not of Evolution but of Regeneration.
EVOLUTION AND CHRIST.
Evolution cannot account for Christ. Without entering here on an argument for His divinity, we simply present him and ask the evolutionist to account for such a character and life. Let us listen to what the enemies of Christianity say of Christ.
Renan said: "The incomparable man to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title of the Son of God, and that with justice.... Between thee and God there will be no longer any distinction."
Jean Paul Richter said: "The holiest among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, He lifted with pierced hands empires off their hinges and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel and still governs the ages." (Dr. Liddon's Bampton Lectures.)
Rousseau testified as follows: "What sweetness, what purity in his morals! What force, what persuasion in his instructions! His maxims how sublime! His discourses, how wise and profound! such presence of mind, such beauty and precision in his answers, such empire over his passions! It would be much harder to conceive that a number of men should have joined together to fabricate this book than that a single person should furnish out the subject to its authors. Jewish writers would never have fallen into that style, and the gospel has such strong and such inimitable marks of truth that the inventor would be more surprising than the hero." (Emilius and Sophia, or An Essay on Education, pp. 79, 80, 81.)
Thomas Paine: "The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind. It has never been excelled." (Age of Reason, p. 5.)
Robert Ingersoll, to M. D. Landon, in a letter giving permission to print his speeches: "In using my speeches do not use any assault I may have made on Christ which I foolishly made in my earlier life. I believe Christ was the perfect man. 'Do unto others' is the perfection of religion and morality. It is the summum bonum." (Homiletic Review, November, 1899, p. 475.)
Theodore Parker: "Shall we be told such a man never lived—the whole story is a lie? Suppose that Plato and Newton never lived, that their story is a lie? But who did their works and thought their thoughts? It takes a Newton to forge a Newton. What man could have fabricated Jesus? None but a Jesus." (Discourses on Religion, pp. 362-3.)
Napoleon Bonaparte: "Everything in Jesus Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me. Between him and whoever else in the world there is no possible line of comparison. I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the Gospel. In him we find a moral beauty before unknown, and an idea of the Supreme superior even to that which creation suggests."
To say that Jesus was an evolution of that age, as some evolutionists do say, and that we may look for even a greater in the future, is to be guilty not only of blasphemy but of gross ignorance as to the age in which Jesus came. There was nothing in that age to give rise to such a character. He came as a flash of lightning in a dark sky, or, according to the Bible figure, as the rising of the sun in the world's night.
CHAPTER V.
EVOLUTION UNSCIENTIFIC AND UNPHILOSOPHICAL.
Before making so serious a charge against a scientific theory as that it is both unscientific and unphilosophical, we will show that others have held a similar view and that among these are many scholars. We have already seen Prof. Paulsen's remark that Haeckel's reasonings are a "disgrace to the philosophy of Germany." Prof. George Frederick Wright calls Evolution a "fad," "the cast-off clothing of the evolutionary philosophy of fifty years ago." The Duke of Argyle says, "It is such a violation of and departure from all that we know of the existing order of things as to deprive it of all scientific base."
EVOLUTION FAILS IN ALL THE STEPS OF SCIENTIFIC PROOF.
There are four stages of proof necessary for a full demonstration.
1. Observation of facts.
2. Classification of these facts.
3. Inferences legitimately drawn therefrom.
4. Verification of these conclusions.
1. It fails in its facts. That this is true is evident from the reticence of the exact scientists to commit themselves to the theory. If the facts were all that they say, these laborious and faithful laborers in the laboratory and field would acknowledge the case. In the presentation of facts, the theoretical evolutionist culls out and magnifies those looking his way and passes in silence or minifies those antagonistic to the theory. It makes much of the change of a low salt water animal into its fresh water form, and passes over the immutability of all the great species. Evolution dwells upon the splints in the leg of the horse and passes over lightly the vast unbridged gaps between organic and inorganic matter, the origin of the vertebrates, the countless missing links between the species. It rests its argument on the "gill-slits" in the necks of embryonic fish, puppies and infants, and passes airily over the origin of matter, of life, of consciousness and of Christian experience. It presents ex-parte evidence.
2. Evolution fails in classification. We have seen the testimony of Evolution itself on this point. Nor is there any agreed definition of species. Not a single species has been traced to its origin. The species defy chronological classification. The most primitive species exist to-day and the most advanced were in existence almost at the first. Nor can the classifications which are attempted be advanced as proof of evolution. They are as evidential of manufacture or of creation or of any other process of intelligent mind.
3. Evolution rests on inferences. As its great philosopher, Spencer, has said, no inference is warranted unless it accounts for all the facts. Not only does no inference of Evolution do this, but it admits again and again that it is beset with countless difficulties. Nor are these inferences the only ones that might be drawn. It is not only necessary to draw an inference but to show that no other inference is possible. Some of these are the wildest possible deductions from the facts,—as for example, the theories as to the origins, already cited, as to whales and giraffes. Sir J. William Dawson, the eminent geologist, says of Evolution's deductions as follows: "It seems to indicate that the accumulated facts of our age have gone altogether beyond its capacity for generalization, and but for the vigor which one sees everywhere, it might be taken as an indication that the human mind has fallen into a state of senility and in its dotage mistakes for science the imaginations which are the dreams of its youth." (Story of the Earth and Man, p. 317.)
The works of writers on Evolution abound in such phrases as "seems to be—I infer—it is conceivable—it might have been—it is probable—I think—apparently—must have been—no one can say—not difficult to conceive,"—and other unscientific terms, and on such deductions they project other inferences, and so leap skilfully from one supposition to another across the quagmire of Evolution.
Evolution is undertaking a philosophical impossibility—the proving of a negative, that there could be no other method than derivation. This is the philosophical basis of the whole theory.
4. Finally Evolution fails in the fourth step. It admits again and again that it has not demonstrated its case. Not a single instance of evolution of species has been shown or produced, and no law of the change is given. The gaps it does not bridge are many. We specially need to notice that it gives no account of the origin of matter or force. It can give no account of the origin of life. It utterly fails to account for man's self-consciousness or intellectual, moral or spiritual nature. It takes no account whatever of the other world or life and entirely disregards the facts of Christian experience. In short, so far from being a great universal philosophy, it is simply a disjointed combination of unproven theories.
The evolutionist, Prof. Conn, admitting the missing factors, says candidly, "It is therefore impossible to make Evolution a complete theory." (Evolution of To-day, p. 6.)
Sir J. William Dawson thus sums up the evidence: "The simplicity and completeness of the evolutionary theory entirely disappear when we consider the unproved assumptions on which it is based and its failure to connect with each other some of the most important facts in nature; that in short, it is not in any true sense a philosophy, but a mere arbitrary arrangement of facts in accordance with a number of unproved hypotheses. Such philosophies, falsely so-called, have existed ever since man began to reason on nature, and this last of all is one of the weakest and most pernicious of all. Let the reader take up either Darwin's great book or Spencer's Biology and merely ask, as he reads each paragraph, What is here assumed and what is proved? and he will find the fabric melt away like a vision. Spencer often exaggerates or extenuates with reference to facts and uses the art of the dialectician where argument fails." (Story of the Earth and Man, p. 330.)
Prof. William Jones tells us Evolution is "a metaphysical creed and nothing else; an emotional attitude rather than a system of thought." (Homiletic Review, August, 1900.)
EVOLUTION RESTS ON IMAGINATION.
The evolutionist not only uses his imagination but claims the right to do so. Tyndall has written an essay on the Scientific Use of the Imagination. Now when the pictures of an evolutionist's imagination are held up as facts, as in the description of man's development from the brute, he leaves the realm of science and enters that of fiction. Mr. Gladstone has said of this: "To the eyes of an onlooker their pace and method seem to be like a steeple-chase. They are armed with a weapon always sufficient if not always an arm of precision, 'the scientific imagination.' They are impatient of that most wholesome state a Suspended Judgment." (Homiletic Review, October, 1900, quoted by Dr. Jesse B. Thomas.)
EVOLUTION IS THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCE.
The language used by the evolutionist is peculiar for persons claiming to believe in law as the great agency of nature and to base their conclusions on the operation of fixed causes. The changes which together make up the birth of a new species are occasioned they say by "chance happenings," "undesigned variations," "accidental variations," "utterly undetermined antecedents," "unintentional variations," and other like expressions. The synonyms of this idea are exhausted by them in describing the way in which the changes first occurred, by which one species began the journey up to another stage of existence. It is simply a revival and revamping of the old doctrine of chance.
Prof. Frank Ballard says of this: "Chance manufactured protoplasm out of nebulosity.... To accept this after rejecting faith on the ground of its difficulty, is to quibble and cavil."
An illustration of the appeal to chance and its use is found in the following account as given by Prof. Ernst Haeckel, the greatest living teacher of Evolution, of how tree-frogs became green: "Once upon a time there were among the offspring of ancestral tree-frogs some which among other colors exhibited green, not much, perhaps not even perceptible to our eyes. The occurrence of this color was spontaneous, a freak. The descendants of these greenish creatures, provided they did not pair with frogs of the ordinary set, became still greener and so on, until the green was pronounced enough to be of advantage when competition set in." (Last Link, p. 176.) Here the origin of greenness in the tree-frog begins with a chance happening and is promoted by a chance union of the greenish frog with one not in "the ordinary set," but of the more select circle of the green, and the favoring chances continued in this same remarkable way until the color became of use in protecting them.
It was with similar chance happenings, Evolution tells us, that all the great kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species originated. It was by chance happenings that the present beautiful and infinite variety of nature came. It was by unintended accidents that the wonderful adjustments in the universe came. It has been calculated that the possibility of the letters of the alphabet, if thrown promiscuously, coming together in the present order is once in five hundred million million million times. What would be the chances of the innumerable combinations of nature coming together in the order in which they are by the chance happenings to which Evolution attributes them?
CHAPTER VI.
EVOLUTION AND THE BIBLE.
The interest in the question of how things came to be centers for the believer in the Bible narrative and doctrine. We have been accustomed to bring all things to Bible testing and so far with assured results. The Bible has never failed and we believe will not fail now. We therefore ask, What does it teach as to Evolution? We are amazed to find Evolution makes no appeal to the Bible, and the Bible makes no allusion to Evolution. They are strangers to each other. The argument from Scripture for Evolution has not yet been written. The best the theistic evolutionist can say as to the Bible account of the origin of man is an apology for its narratives, or some explanation which vaporizes its facts into figures of speech.
We have heretofore given the Bible account and that of Evolution printed in parallel columns (p. 61). The reader is again referred to these, and asked to notice the differences in these two accounts. The Bible account is not the description of the slow transformation of an ape into a man-like ape, and that into an ape-like man, and that into a cave man, and he into a stone-tool man, and that again into a pottery-making savage, and he into a weapon-making barbarian, and he into a Chinese and after that into a Roman or Greek, and last into an Englishman and American and he into a spiritual being in the image and likeness of God. Common literary honesty demands that we give an author his own intended meaning. If the Bible meant Evolution why did it not give it? Two accounts more utterly dissimilar could scarcely be given than the Bible account of man's creation and the account of Evolution. We may take one or other and be consistent but the rules of literary exegesis and common sense and Scripture alike forbid taking both.
To call it "poetry" or an "allegory" is no explanation. Why did not the writer make poetry or allegory which had some agreement with facts? Why lead us into a perplexing situation when he might as well have given us some other account or omitted it altogether?
The differences between these two accounts are obvious. The Bible account describes a definite act, the Evolution account a long-continued process through millions of years. The Bible account is a production de novo of a new and original creature; the Evolution account gives one of a numerous line of ancestors; the Bible account presents us with a perfect creature "in the likeness of God;" the Evolution account with a brute slightly raised above the common herd. The Bible account gives a descriptive narrative with accompanying events; the Evolution account leaves all the events unknown save as guessed at by the imagination of the various writers. The Bible account gives a high and noble origin by a special and creative act of his Creator; Evolution tells of a degraded origin from a brute by the operation of blind forces. The Bible account is noble and satisfying and, to one who believes in an omnipotent God, credible, calling for belief in one creative act; the Evolution account is filled with difficulties and paradoxes calling for the wildest stretch of imagination and the utmost application of credulity.
The Bible account is frequently referred to as an actual history by other Scripture writers; the evolutionary account has not one Scripture reference or the slightest hint from Scripture of its having any place whatever in fact. The Bible account agrees with and is the basis of the spiritual teachings of the Bible; the evolutionary account has no such agreement and needs to be explained away to be allowed any place whatever in sacred writings. If the Bible is the book the common consent of the wisest of all mankind and of every age has affirmed it to be, it should have some intimation of this "greatest discovery of the human mind." For the Bible does touch on the greatest problems of the world and life.
Not only does the Bible give a very different account of the origin of man, but also of nature. Its definition of the beginning of things is as follows: "By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear." (Heb. 11:3.) The term it applies to this is Creation. It gives also a circumstantial account of the coming of the present order as we have it, closing with man's creation.
EVOLUTION'S INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE.
In order to bring the evolutionary theories within the possibility of Bible sanction, a theory of interpretation is adopted which calls the narratives of Creation and the Fall myths, legends, allegories, parables, "scenic representation," or "idealized history" according to the theological bias of the interpreter. These all amount to the same thing, for they do away with the historical value of the accounts. It is only a play upon words to say they are "parables" for parables are not unhistorical. Every one of Christ's parables is true to life and facts. It is claimed that the Bible narratives are poetry and therefore are not historical. The evolutionist for his purpose confounds poetry and fiction. They are not synonymous. A poetical form does not imply fictitiousness. The Psalms have much history under their poetical form. But the first chapter of Genesis is not poetry. Hebrew poetry has a well-defined form as seen in the poetical books. This chapter does not conform to that form, and accordingly it is printed not in poetical form but as prose in the Revised Version. The mere repetition of certain phrases is not the mark of poetry, but is characteristic of the oriental languages in which the Bible was written.
But who is to decide what in the Bible is historical and what is not? What is to hinder anyone from so discarding any fact whatever in the Bible? Why has not the enemy of Christianity the same right to apply this reasoning to the accounts of the death and resurrection of Christ? Where will this process end? The proclaimer of such theories is putting a weapon into the hands of the opponent of Christianity that he will use one day to the destruction of the faith of many. Once having permission to apply these terms, it is easy to make these narratives, or anything else in the Bible, mean anything or nothing as is desired. As an ancient writer said, "Twenty doctors can make a text read twenty different ways." We protest against this loose method of interpretation for many reasons:
1. We object to every new theory interpreting the Bible to suit itself.
2. There is not the slightest warrant in these narratives or elsewhere for such interpretation. They are given as facts and are always so treated. Creation and the Fall are everywhere spoken of as actual facts both by Christ and all other Scripture writers.
3. It is on this system of interpretation that every false system rests, such as Mormonism. All the modern vagaries support themselves from Scripture by accommodation of its language to their doctrines.
4. The Bible is not a book of puzzles, a delphic oracle, to be read in any way suited to the occasion or desires. It has a plain meaning and is for everyday people and everyday needs.
5. The acceptance of the Bible account as unquestioned fact and the literal interpretation of it by Christ and his apostles ought to be enough for anyone calling himself Christian or even for any other who will accept good human testimony. These writers were 1900 years nearer the date of the events in question than we. They had access to knowledge now lost to us. From any standpoint, we may rest our view of these narratives on the testimony of the New Testament Scriptures. The references of the New Testament to the Old are numbered by hundreds. Any Bible with references, or any text book or Bible with Helps will show these. It is enough here to give those Christ refers to.
Christ himself cites from twelve books and about twenty-four narratives as follows: Creation, Matt. 19:4; Law of Marriage, Matt. 19:5; Cain and Abel, Matt. 23:35; The Deluge, Matt. 24:37; Abraham, John 8:56; Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife, Luke 17:28-32; Manna, John 6:49; Brazen Serpent, John 3:14; Shew Bread, Matt. 12:3, 4; Elijah and his Miracles, Luke 4:25, 26; Naaman, Luke 4:27; Tyre and Sidon, Matt. 11:22; Jonah and "The Whale," Matt. 12:39; The Books of Moses, John 5:46; The Psalms, Luke 20:42; Moses and The Prophets, Luke 24:27; Isaiah, Matt. 13:14; Daniel's Prophecies, Matt. 24:15; Malachi, Matt. 11:10; The entire Old Testament, Luke 24:44. Of not one of these does he convey the slightest hint of aught but trustworthiness and literal interpretation.
6. The still more serious issue is presented of asserting that both Paul and Christ either did not know that these were myths, or knowing so gave no intimation that they used them in any way other than as true narratives. This would not only shake all confidence in Christ as divine and his apostles as inspired, but would shake all confidence in any fact or teaching from Scripture whatever. For Scripture rests on facts and these facts on witnesses. To these, appeal is constantly made. On the truth of these all depends. Here then is a "mythical" Adam made the basis of marriage; a "mythical" Adam and his fall, the argument for man's need and Christ's work, and the same "mythical" Adam made the proof of the resurrection. In short the whole system of Bible truth is attacked by these theories, from credibility in Christ himself to the last hope of the believer in the world to come.
Whom shall we believe? Shall we credit Evolution which admits that its theory is unproven and full of difficulties, with not a single case of Evolution to support it, nor a power which could produce it, and with countless facts to antagonize it, or shall we believe Jesus Christ who was never mistaken, or false in his facts, or teachings, and who believed these chapters, cited them and accepted their narratives without question?
EVOLUTION AND BIBLE DOCTRINES.
We have arrived at the vital point in this discussion. If Evolution were only a scientific question, it would interest a limited circle. As a deeply religious question it interests all. That Evolution affects vitally all evangelical belief is apparent to the most superficial inquirer. It is not only a matter of historic fact but of doctrinal teaching. Man's nature and need as a descendant from the brute is one thing, and as a spiritual being, fallen from the likeness of God, another. The responsibility in either case is very different and therefore has to do with eternal destiny for weal or woe, and also with the work of Christ.
The theology of the Higher Criticism which is also the theology of Evolution, of which it is the Biblical branch, is thus summed up by an evolutionary writer, in a recent article giving the articles of belief of the theology of Evolution: "The Bible can no longer speak with unquestioned authority.... Poor old Adam disappears.... Christ's divinity is only such as we may possess ... the atonement is only such as we see in all life and nature.... As to the future life we find ourselves left very much in the dark.... We no longer regard going to heaven as the center of our interest." (Theodore D. Bacon quoted in Homiletic Review, Nov. 1902.)
Evolution teaches, as stated by Dr. George A. Gordon, of Boston: "Man's state and fate is on account of the irrationality he has brought up with him from the animal world." (Immortality and the New Theodicy, p. 100.) The future of man according to Evolution is that as he has risen from the brute state he ought not to be punished for his defects but rather rewarded for having done so well. Evolution teaches that man has in himself the elements of his salvation. These if developed will produce the change he needs for this world and that to come. He will proceed on the same lines as he has traveled to reach his present state. Development is the Saviour of Evolution. The Bible says that to develop man is to develop sin and, "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." It requires the intervention of the Supernatural in Regeneration to save man. Evolution is self-saving.
The future is radically affected by the theory of Evolution. The development of mankind is its objective point. To bring man to a point of development will bring the Kingdom of Heaven. The fate of the individual is not made much of. He is sacrificed for the race or species. But while not much is made of the individual the general teaching is that somehow it will be well with all at last. It is a fact that all universalists are evolutionists. Evolution makes Heaven and Hell terms which mean little or nothing. The present social state of man is the great quest. Evolution is a bridge which reaches neither shore. It knows not whence man came nor where he goes.
1. The Bible rests its doctrines upon its facts. There is no character in Scripture aside from Christ upon whose historical character so much Scripture doctrine depends as upon Adam. The creation of man is made the basis for the sanctity of marriage by Christ, who quotes the words of the account in Genesis. (Matt. 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-9.) Paul makes this narrative the basis of his great argument for the state and need of man and the work of Christ. "Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin.... Death reigned from Adam to Moses.... By the trespass of the one the many died ... the judgment came of one unto condemnation ... as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous." (Rom. 5:12-21, R. V.) Here the actuality of the narrative is the very basis of the declaration of man's state in sin and a type of the extent and nature of Christ's work. So also the use by Paul in the account of the resurrection doctrine: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Cor. 15:22-45.)
2. The Bible teaches that man was made in the image of God. That image was Christ who is elsewhere declared to be "the effulgence of his glory and the very image of his substance." (Heb. 1:3.) In this image man was made. This is a very different picture presented to us from that given by the evolutionist of a brute "which could stand on its hind legs and throw things with its forelegs."
3. The Bible teaches that all are guilty and condemned and lost, and without excuse. It teaches that man fell from a high state as a race and as a race is responsible for his condition. It cites death as the proof of this. It teaches that man is inherently averse to God by nature and wilfully continues to do wrong and in short is condemned and lost. It teaches that he once had the truth and wilfully gave it up for sin. That he does so now in spite of the law of God written in his conscience and that out of Christ he is lost and without hope. (Rom. 1-5; Ep. 2:1-3, 11, 12.)
4. The Bible teaches that what man needs is a pardon, a reconciliation with God, a ransom, a regeneration, a resurrection. He must be translated from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness to that of light. If he has not all this he is lost and doomed.
5. The Bible teaches that in order that man might enjoy this, Christ had to come and die, "the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God." He died as a sacrifice, as an offering, as a ransom, as a propitiation, as a reconciliation. His death made it possible in justice as well as in mercy to save man.
6. The Bible gives a description of man's means of salvation which is most opposite to the hope held out by Evolution. It is by a radical and supernatural change that he becomes right and only as all men so change or are changed will the world become right. Conversion is not Evolution but regeneration, the implanting of a new and opposite nature.
7. The Bible teaches a different outcome of human life and history. It points to an end by supernatural means to the world and a judgment for mankind and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven by supernatural means. It cites the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Deluge as examples of the world's end. It gives the most awful combination of earthly figures as the picture of the doom of the impenitent and the most beautiful figures earth and sky can furnish or the mind of man conceive as the home of the saved. Nothing could be more different than the theologies of Evolution and of the Bible.
Many well-meant volumes have been written to reconcile Evolution and evangelical belief. None are satisfying, although the eagerness with which some were at first received are witness to the desire to retain both beliefs.
The theistic evolutionist thinks that to find a place for the Creator somewhere along the line is enough. St. James rebukes this insufficient theology in these words: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (Jas. 2:19.) So also Christ himself said: "Ye believe in God believe also in me.... I am the way, the truth and the life.... No man cometh unto the Father but by me.... He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him.... For as the Father hath life in himself even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself.... He hath committed all judgment unto the Son that all men may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father." Theism then is not enough in the opinion of Jesus Christ.
The whole Christian system is in question in this theory. The whole aim of Evolution is to dispose of the supernatural as much as possible. The radical evolutionist gets rid of God entirely he thinks. The theistic evolutionist limits the interference of the supernatural to the creation of matter, of life, of man's spiritual nature, and the incarnation and work of Christ. The tendency of evolution is to make the miracles of Christ mythical and the phenomena of conversion natural. The theistic evolutionist is on a side hill. He must go up or down. He is not consistent, and, as the human mind asserts its right to consistency, he is forced, willingly or unwillingly, often unconsciously, to the one side or the other, and he finds himself led along lines which take him far from evangelical belief. In its consistent form, Evolution leaves no room for a Creator. Indeed Haeckel, the greatest of living evolutionists and the legitimate successor to Darwin's place and greatness, states, as already quoted, thus: "It entirely excludes supernatural process, every prearranged and conscious act of a personal character. Nothing will make the full meaning of the theory of descent clearer than calling it the non-miraculous theory of creation." (History of Creation, pp. 397, 422.) Another evolutionist, Carl Vogt, says: "Evolution turns the Creator out of doors." Infidels all accept of it gladly. Every atheist is an evolutionist.
EVOLUTION A RELIC OF HEATHENISM.
James Freeman Clark thus writes: "In the system of the Greek and Scandinavian mythology, spirit is evolved from matter; matter up to spirit works. They begin with the lowest form of being; night, chaos, a mundane egg, and evolve the higher gods therefrom." (Ten Great Religions, p. 231.)
Sir J. William Dawson, the late eminent geologist of Canada, writes of the theory as follows: "The evolutionist doctrine is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity. It existed most naturally in the oldest philosophy and poetry, in connection with the crudest and most uncritical attempts of the human mind to grasp the system of nature; but that in our day a system destitute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague analogies and figures of speech and by arbitrary and artificial coherence of its own parts, should be accepted as a philosophy and should find able adherents to string upon its thread of hypothesis our vast and weighty stores of knowledge, is surpassingly strange." (Story of the Earth and Man, p. 317.)
Evolution is working towards a pantheistic atheism. This is expressed in the creed of the late Cecil Rhodes, the late magnate of South Africa, as follows: "I believe in Force Almighty, the ruler of the universe, working scientifically through natural selection to bring about the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit."
CHAPTER VII.
THE SPIRITUAL EFFECT OF EVOLUTION.
It is apparent that the adoption of such a theory as Evolution must affect the spiritual state of the person receiving it. Man's mental and spiritual natures are intimately connected. While those in a settled previous spiritual experience may carry Evolution as "a working theory" only, those in an immature state will be vitally affected. Especially is this true of youthful minds. It is indeed a fact that many young men have started with high purposes to prepare for the ministry, and even for foreign missions, and have, after adopting these modern theories, abandoned their purpose, and thousands have abandoned all personal religion. Pastors can tell of many such instances.
Some have said that the adoption of Evolution has helped their faith. They fail to see that bringing the Bible down to their faith is not bringing their faith up to the Bible. It is a weakening of faith and not a strengthening of it. This apparent increase of faith simply prepares the way for its utter ruin. The first step leads to a wider divergence, as many have shown, that leads to wreck of all faith in a supernatural God or world or Bible. The mind will follow its natural workings. Loss of faith in the facts of the Bible leads to loss of faith in its truths. The acceptance of this theory still further leads to a lessening of the sense of our need of Christ that the Bible teaches and man should feel. And further the acceptance of this theory, while it may not affect materially the minds of experienced Christians, will through them affect others.
There is also a latent unconscious loss of faith that is realized only in some great emergency, when in "the storm and stress" of life the soul looks out for something to hold to. It is then that the rotting platform of unbelief goes down in wreck. The other extreme is also a cause of ruin. In the time of great prosperity when all the allurements of life and time and sense present themselves, it requires all the purpose one has to stem the tide of temptations. It is here that a false belief will work havoc. The mind conceives that after all sin is not so hateful or salvation so needed or doom so fearful.
The effect on experimental personal experience is evident. Instead of looking for a regeneration, a revolution of the inner state, the believer in Evolution necessarily looks for a change from education or other form of development. Such a thing as conversion or a baptism of the Holy Ghost he will cease to look for or desire. There will come declining feeling, lessening devotion, prayer will become perfunctory and there will come increasing occupation with and love for other things. Evolution as a belief makes right many things that were before held to be wrong. It is an easy religion to hold. It strikes the world at the angle of least resistance and enables the holder to accept almost anything that the natural man desires. The conflict of "the flesh and the spirit" ceases; the flesh, that is the natural man, has conquered.
These theories in many seem to be but evidences of a previous wrong state of heart. The wish is father to the thought. The theory is accepted because it allows the laying aside of views that restrain the desires. Such persons are willing to admit the existence of God and his contact with man at Creation if relieved from any nearer relationship. It is therefore worse than unbelief. It is antagonism. It is enmity. Christ said, "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." The heart and life are the basis of their opinions. It is evident that argument here fails. "A man convinced against his will remains an unbeliever still."
Evolution is a comfortable theory to the world. It elevates man. It hides the presence of God. It calls for no repentance or consecration. It boasts of human progress and claims merit therefor. In short it is the worship of man rather than the worship of God. It deifies man and it ignores Christ. Once committed to this theory, there is no extreme the person may not reach. Some have abandoned Christ and Christianity because of it. It is in fact in doctrine and experience and conduct, the antithesis of Christianity.
Such a theory as Evolution and its vaporizing method of Bible interpretation, prepares the way for "isms" of every kind. It is to this we are indebted for the swarm of these that afflicts the church to-day. Once allow that the Bible may be interpreted to suit such theories and any heresy or absurdity can prove its position from the Bible as all of them by this same process do.
It is already weakening the power of the pulpit, and this in turn is one great reason for the declining effect of the preached word. Once received into a minister's heart the edge of his sword is dulled if indeed the sword is not itself sheathed. He may not preach Evolution either as a method of creation or a method of salvation, but his own inner faith is weakened in the old truth which had such power to convert the souls of hearers. When openly advocated and taught, it is useless to seek revivals among those so taught. So it is the fact that conversions to-day are mainly confined to the young and others not affected by the error.
All the indications point to the further weakening of the hold upon men of the supernatural and the eternal. To eliminate the former and, while acknowledging the latter, to disparage all reference to the future life, seems to be the tendency of the day. As already cited, one of its chief advocates tells us, "Heaven is no longer the center of the Christian's hope." The consequence is the material and intellectual interests receive chief attention and other agencies take the chief place religion should have. Education received in the United States over $200,000,000 in gifts during the last few years, to say nothing of the many fold more received from incomes and public funds. Meanwhile the causes of Christ are languishing, missions are dwarfed, small churches in great masses of the population are struggling for existence against fearful odds, while the money of professed Christians pours in these mighty streams for all other purposes. No sensible person will disparage education, but "Religion is the chief concern of mortals here below."
Further it is the few who can take advantage of the higher education for which these millions are given. But five per cent of the common school scholars can attend college. The many must toil for existence. It is to the poor the gospel was preached by its Founder. It is to the poor it means most. To those who have little else it is the all in all. It is to these it should be preached in its freedom and fullness. The principles of natural selection of the fittest which sends millions to higher institutions and neglects the masses of the people is the opposite of the gospel.
Cardinal Newman wrote: "There is a special effort made almost all over the world, but most visibly and formidably in its most civilized and powerful part, to do without religion.... Truly there is at this time a confederacy of evil marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself and taking measures enclosing the church of Christ as in a net and preparing the way for a general apostasy." (Quoted in "Christianity and Anti-Christianity." S. J. Andrews, p. 4.) Whether this is the final form of unbelief is difficult to say. It bears the marks of anti-christianity the apostle speaks of. The unbelief of the latter days will rest on belief in the unvarying stability of nature. (2 Peter 3:4.) The coming of this theory is aimed to dissipate any looking for supernatural changes such as the Scriptures teach are coming to earth, such as the last day, the coming of Christ, the resurrection and all the vast series of changes therein declared. Hence that wholesome fear of God so operative in deterring evil and stimulating good is removed. Based on this unbelief, the enemy of God and man can advance to the accomplishment of his purposes as never before. All satanic methods before this have been crude and coarse compared with this last invention. It is the most subtle and sweeping of all evil methods to ensnare the mind of man. Based on what is called science, promoted by the scholars of the day, taught in the fountains of learning and preached from pulpit and platform, it must have a widespread effect. Heretofore attacks on Christianity have been made from without. This is from within. It is the trusted leaders who are now undermining the fortress in which they live.
But revivals always begin at the bottom. It was a few poor fishermen who commenced the gospel age. It is their successors to whom we must look as we have in the past for return of apostolic power. "God chose the foolish things of the world that He might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world that He might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised did God choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before God." (1 Cor. 1:27, 28, R. V.) So we look hopefully to God for that only which will deliver the church from this and all other pestilent evils, theoretical and practical, a revival of true religion by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of the old gospel of the cross of Christ.