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By

William Jennings Bryan

In His Image,

James Sprunt Lectures. I2mo, cloth .

. 51-75

Heart to Heart Appeals,

i2mo, cloth 1^1.25

The cream of Mr, Bryan's public utterances on
Prohibition, Money, Imperialism, Trusts, Labor, In-
come Tax, Peace, Religion, Pan-Americanism, etc.

The Prince of Peace,

l2mo, boards

Messages for the Times,

i2mo, boards, each

60c.

35c.

The First Commandment,
In simple, unaffected language, the author en-
larges upon the present-day breaches of the First
Commandment.

The. Message from Bethlehem.
A plea for the world-wide adoption of the spirit
of the Angels' song — •' Good-will to Men." The
context and import of this great principle has
never been more understandingly set forth.

The Royal Art.

A lucid exposition of Mr. Bryan's views concern-
ing the aims and ideals of righteous government.

The Making of a Man.

A faithful tracing of the main lines to be followed

if the crown of manhood is to be attained.

The Fruits of the Tree.

" Either for the reinvigoration of faith or for the
dissipation of doubt, this little volume is a docu-
ment of power." — Continent.

The
Menace of Darwinism

By
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

Being- a reissue of chapter four from the
author's volume " In His Image," together
with comments on the importance of its ap-
peal, reasons for its separate publication
and an abstract of the remaining chapters

New York Chicago

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 1921, 1922, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

Printed in tht United States of America

New York : 1 58 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
London : 2 1 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street

Preface

IT has been decided to publish, in booklet form,
Chapter IV from " In His Image." ' The com-
plete work contains nine religious lectures deliv-
ered by the author in October, 1921, at the Union
Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, and this
Preface is intended to give a brief review of the book
from which the chapter is taken. The original title
of this chapter was " The Origin of Man," but as it
deals with Darwinism and the effect of that hypothesis
upon religious thought, the title is changed to '* The
Menace of Darwinism," in order to emphasize its
dominant note.

The hypothesis to which Darwin*s name has been
attached was not original with him. Before the be-
ginning of the Christian era vague suggestions had
been made attributing to man a brute origin, but Dar-
win advanced explanations of the changes made neces-
sary by such an hypothesis and outlined a family tree
by which he attempted to connect man with all animal
life below him. He applied the doctrine of evolution
to man more definitely and defended it more elabo-

'"In His Image," by William Jennings Bryan. 12 mo, 266
pages— $1.75. Fleming H. Revell Company.

3

4 PREFACE

rately than any one else had done. While the two
propositions which he advanced to explain man's de-
scent from the brute, viz., " natural selection " and
" sexual selection," have been largely discarded, the
idea of a brute descent still lives among evolutionists
and, in my judgment, is at present the only serious at-
tack upon the fundamental fact of God and upon the
great and controlling influences that rest upon belief in
God.

Darwin's views made the holder thereof an agnostic,
led him away from belief in the Bible, God, and Christ;

^ and, as I prove in this lecture, .the natural tendency of
Darwinism is to lead those astray who put their faith

• in evolution. I speak now of the tendency. It is dan-
gerous not because ahvays fatal but because it is so
often fatal. Only a small percentage of those who
take smallpox die of that disease, and yet we quaran-
tine against smallpox, and no one is permitted to com-
municate the disease to others. The spiritual mortal-
ity, as I show by quotations from Leuba, is greater
among those who adopt Darwinism than is the
physical mortality among those who are afflicted with
smallpox.

The tendency of Darwinism, when taken seriously,

f is to undermine faith, first, in the Bible as an inspired
book, and then in the miracles because contrary to
evolution; next, repudiation of the virgin birth and the
resurrection of Christ because miraculous, and the
rejection of Christ as Son and Saviour. Lastly, Dar- -
winism leads to the denial of the existence of a per-

I sonal God.

PEEFACE 5

Evolutionists are divided into two classes— atheistic
evolutionists, who do not admit the existence of a
Supreme Being at all, and theistic evolutionists, who
travel with the atheists to the Ptginning of life and
then assume the existence of GcAas Creator of life.
While the theistic evolutionist does not aftirmatively
deny God, he is more dangerous to Christian faith than
the atheist, because, while claiming to believe in a
Creator, he puts God so far away that consciousness
of God's presence loses its power to comfort. How
can one be conscious of God's presence in his daily life
if God has never, since life began, touched a human
heart or put His hand upon the destiny of nations or
individuals? Evolution also paralyzes the sense of — "
responsibility to God. What compelling force can a
sense of responsibility have if it must be strained
through the blood of all the animal life below man?
Nearly all atheists come from the ranks of the theistic
evolutionists. • Theistic evolution may be described as
an anesthetic which deadens the pain while the patient's
religion is being gradually removed, or it may be
likened to a way-station on the highway that leads
from Christian faith to No-God-Land.

The special reason for bringing to the attention of
Christians at this time the evil that Darwinism is do-
ing is to show that| atheists and agnostics are not only
claiming but enjoying higher rights and greater privi-
leges in this land than Christians ; that is, they are able
to propagate their viev/s at pttblic expense while Chris-
tianity must be taught at the expense of Christians.
Whenever Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic,

1

6 PEEFACE

desire to present to students their interpretation of
Christianity they build their own colleges with their
own money, employ their own teachers, and give to
the school a name which indicates what is being
taught. Is there any reason why atheists and agnostics
should not be compelled to do likewise? If they desire
to teach that there is no God and therefore no Bible
and no Christ, why do they not build their own col-
leges and support them? Christians do not deny to
atheists the right to dispute the existence of God or to
agnostics the right to declare themselves without an
opinion on the subject; Christians do not deny the right
of atheists and agnostics to teach their views; Chris-
tians would put all on the same level. The question
in dispute is whether atheists and agnostics have a
right to teach irreligion in public schools — whetlier
teachers drawing salaries from the public treasury
shall be permitted to undermine belief in God, the
Bible, and Christ by teaching not scientific truth but
unproven and unsupported guesses which cannot be
true unless the Bible is false.

The reader may know more of the character of
" In His Image '* by the following summary:

Chapter I deals with the existence of a Supreme
Being, all-wise, all-powerful, and all-loving — self-ex-
istent and the Creator of all things. Under this head
attention is called to a rebuke which Tolstoy delivered
to " the cultured crowd *' who think that religion is a
superstition, good enough for the ignorant but un-
necessary when one reaches a certain period of in-
tellectual development. It is this idea of substituting

PEEFACE 7

education for religion that is threatening to overturn
man's philosophy of Hfe. The great Russian philoso-
pher declares that religion does not rest upon a vague
fear of the unseen forces of nature but upon man's
consciousness of his finiteness amid an infinite uni-
verse, and of his sinfulness. " This consciousness,"
Tolstoy added, " man can never outgrow."

An ansv^er is given to those who condemn religion
because of its mysteries. Life, love, patriotism, and
all other things with which man deals are full of
mystery and yet we live, we love, and are patriotic.
If we only apply to religion the same common sense
that we apply to daily life we shall put into practice
that which w-e do know instead of being distracted by
that which we may never be able to know. If man
only lives up to so much of the Bible as he does un-
derstand he will be too busy doing good to worry about
passages which he finds difficult.

Belief in God is the basis upon which rest all the
great influences that control our lives — all these will
go if belief in God goes. The existence of God, there-
fore, becomes the basic fact not only in religion but in
society and civilization.

Chapter II deals wath the Bible as the Book of
books. It is either a man-made book or a book by
inspiration given. Those who believe it to be a man-
made book are challenged to put their theory to the
test. If man made the Bible, man ought to be able
to make a better book to-day than the Bible. If the
Bible is a man-made book, it must be remembered that
it was made by a comparatively few persons of a single

8 PREFACE

race, living in an area not as large as some of our
American counties, who had no great universities to
train them for their work, no great libraries to consult,
no swift ships to carry them to the different centers of
civilization, no telegraph to bring them news from
every corner of the earth. Yet they grappled with
every problem that confronts mankind, from the crea-
tion of the world to life beyond the grave. They gave
us a diagram of man's existence and set up w^arning
signs at every danger point. If the Bible be of human
origin, why is it that, with all the advance in wealth,
education, and invention, mankind does not produce a
better book ?

In one chapter Moses gives us three verses that more
vitally concern man than all that can be found in all
the books that uninspired man has written. " In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth," is
the only sentence that gives us the origin of life; sec-
ond, the command that established reproduction ac-
cording to kind; that is the only law governing the
continuity of the race; and, third, the making of man
in God's image; that is the only explanation of man's
existence on earth.

No substitute ever proposed for the first verse of
the Bible is as easily understood, believed, and de-
fended.

The law of reproduction according to kind is in-
violable. Even man is not able to lead or compel that
intangible, invisible thing that we call life to cross the
line of species.

And no man without revelation has ever been able

PEEFACE 9

to guess the riddle of man's existence. How can he ?
Man is born into this world without his own voHtion ;
he has nothing whatever to say as to the age in which
he will live, the land in which he will be born, the race
of which he will be a member, the family which will
furnish the environment of his infancy and youth, or
even his sex. So far as he is concerned, he comes by
chance, knows not how long he will stay, or how or
when he will go hence.

But w^hen man knows that God, after making all
other things, made man, not as He made all other
things but in His oimi likeness, appointed him com-
mander-in-chief of all that is and put the destiny of
the earth into his hands, he finds himself. He learns
from God's Word that while all is for him he must
render account for every moment of his life, every
atom of his power and every ounce of his influence.
The Heavenly Father has linked happiness to virtue
and success to righteousness, exacting from man in
return only one thing — obedience.

Where in all other books can be found so much that
is vital to man? And besides these three verses we
have — the inspiration of the prophets, the consolation
of the Psalms, the instruction that comes from the
record of God's dealing with a chosen people; then
the New Testament with the story of Jesus and His
atoning blood, a code of morality that is to endure for
all time and a gospel for every human being. Behind
all these we have Christ Himself, with all power in
heaven and earth in His hands, and His promise, " Lo,
I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

10 PEEFACE

The Bible gives us the world's only conception of
God; it gives us our only conception of Christ, and
it gives us itself as an infallible guide.

The Bible must be rejected or defended. If it be
false, it is the most stupendous impostor the world has
ever known; if, on the other hand, it be true, as we
believe it is, no book can be compared with it — ^noth-
ing in all the writings of men can approach it.

Chapter III deals with Christ and takes up the vari-
ous theories in regard to Him. Was He a fraud?
Did He make a claim to power under a delusion ? Or
was He what He claimed to be, " The Way, the Truth,
and the Life " ? It presents Christ as Son of God and
Saviour of the world, and offers in proof of His claim
what He said and did and was. Born in a manger,
reared in a carpenter shop, and yet, when only about
thirty years of age. He gave the world a code of
morality the like of which the world had never seen
before and has not seen since, preached for a few
months, gathered around Him a few disciples, and
then was crucified and His disciples scattered, or put
to death. Yet, from this beginning, His influence has
grown until hundreds of millions have been proud to
bear His name and millions have been willing to die
rather than surrender their faith in Him. He is the
great fact of history and the growing figure of all
time. It is easier to believe Him divine than to ex-
plain His life. His teachings, and the spread of the
religion that bears His Name in any other way. The
facts of history so fully support the claims of the Bible,
and of the Bible's God and Christ that the burden of

PEEFACE 11

proof is upon those who reject them, not upon those
who accept them.

Chapter IV is the present reprint, and so speaks for
itself.

Chapter V deals with "The Larger Life" and is
built upon two Bible quotations. Paul tells us that
Christ came to bring " life and immortality to light "
— and the word " Hfe " comes before the word ** im-
mortality." But we have a higher authority even than
Paul; Christ in His explanation of His own mission
said, " I am come that they might have life, and that
they might have it more abundantly/' It is to the
more abundant life that Christ calls us. The chapter
contains illustrations of the manner in which Chris-
tianity can be applied to the individual, and shows that
the Christian life is the only one in which true and
lasting happiness can be found. The Christian philos-
ophy is the only one that fits into every human need
and furnishes a solution for every problem.

Chapter VI deals with the value of a soul —
Christ's question, *' What shall it profit a man if he
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? "
An effort is made to set forth God's law of rewards
and to show how its universal adoption would solve
the problems that perplex us, by limiting man's col-
lections to his earnings. Illustrations are given to
show that man may earn enormous sums, attention
being called to the fact that those who earn the largest
amounts, by giving an equivalent service in return, do
not collect all they earn. Those who earn fabulous
sums are so busy earning that they have not time to

12 PEEFACE

collect, while those who collect fabulous sums are so
busy collecting that they have no time to earn.

Chapter VII deals with the Bible account of the
healing of the ten lepers, nine of whom were ungrate-
ful. It applies this great lesson of ingratitude to the
citizens of our own country. Three priceless gifts are
used as illustrations; viz., Christianity, education, and
popular government. Education is described as a gift
rather than an accomplishment because it depends so
largely upon inherited advantages and opportunities
that come with the environment of youth. Quotations
are given to show that many who receive the benefits
of education are not only as ungrateful as the nine
lepers but actually use against society the strength
which education gives them. Wendell Phillips is quoted
as saying that the people make history while the
scholars only write it, part truly and part as colored
by their prejudices. President Wilson is quoted as
saying that the great voice of America does not come
from seats of learning or even find an echo in the
corridors of our universities. President Roosevelt is
quoted as saying that there is scarcely a great con-
spiracy against the public welfare that has not Har-
vard brains behind it — and the charge applies to other
universities as well as to Harvard. Emphasis is laid
upon the duty of Christians to meet their obligations as
citizens and on the Church to deal with all the problems
that confront the world.

Chapter VIII deals with " His Government and
Peace," and was suggested by verse seven of the ninth
chapter of Isaiah: " Of the increase of his government

PREFACE 13

and his peace there shall be no end." In this chapter
Christ's teachings are applied to government, a contrast
being drawn between the attitude which man assumes
when he deals with his fellowmen as a man and a
brother wherein he is restrained by the ties of kinship,
and the attitude of the brute when he devours with the
savage hunger of the beast. A number of great re-
forms are traced to the teachings of Christ.

Chapter IX (the concluding one) is devoted to a
discussion of public speaking. Rules are suggested for
the use of those who present their thoughts from pul-
pit or platform. Attention is called to first essentials —
knowledge of the subject and earnestness in its pre-
sentation, clearness of statement, brevity, illustrations,
the question, faith in the triumph of the right, and the
character of the speaker who stands back of what
he says and gives force to it.

In the book as a whole, I have endeavored to present
the fundamental principles of the Christian faith. It
is intended for the average man; the arguments are
presented in every-day language and the illustrations
drawn from every-day life. Its purpose is to
strengthen the readers' faith in a real God — a living
Heavenly Father — in His Word as an infallible guide,
and in Jesus Christ as Son, Saviour, and perfect Ex-
ample for mankind.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN

WHEN the mainspring is broken a watch
ceases to be useful as a timekeeper. A
handsome case may make it still an orna-
ment and the parts may have a market value, but it
cannot serve the purpose of a watch. There is that
in each human life that corresponds to the mainspring
of a watch — that which is absolutely necessary if the
life is to be what it should be, a real life and not a
mere existence. That necessary thing is a belief in
God. Religion is defined as the relation between God
and man, and Tolstoy has described morality as the
outward expression of this inward relationship. ,

If it be true, as I believe it is, that morality is de-
pendent upon religion, then religion is not only the
most practical thing in the world, but the first es-
sential. Without religion, viz., a sense of depend-
ence upon God and reverence for Him, one can play
a part in both the physical and the intellectual world,
but he cannot live up to the possibilities which God
has placed within the reach of each human being.

A belief in God is fundamental; upon it rest the in-
fluences that control life.

First, the consciousness of God's presence in the life
gives one a sense of responsibility to the Creator for
every thought and word and deed.

15

16 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

Second, prayer rests upon a belief in God; com- ;
munion with the Creator in the expression of gratitude
and in pleas for guidance powerfully influences man.
Third, belief in a personal immortality rests upon
. faith in God; the inward restraint that one finds in a j
faith that looks forward to a future life with its re- ]
i wards and punishments, makes outward restraint less
I necessary. Man is weak enough in hours of tempta-
I tion, even when he is fortified by the conviction that
I this life is but a small arc of an infinite circle; his
power of resistance is greatly impaired if he accepts
the doctrine that conscious existence terminates with
death.
/ Fourth, the spirit of brotherhood rests on a belief
I in God. We trace our relationship to our fellowmen
\ through the Creator, the Common Parent of us all.
Fifth, belief in the Bible depends upon a belief in
God. Jehovah comes first; His word comes after-
ward. There can be no inspiration without a Heavenly
Father to inspire.

Sixth, belief in God is also necessary to a belief in

Christ; the Son could not have revealed the Father

i

to man according to any atheistc theory. And so with ■
all other Christian doctrines: they rest upon a belief
in God. 1

If belief in God is necessary to the beliefs enumer- |
I ated, then it follows logically that anything that weak-
ens belief in God weakens man, and, to the extent that
it impairs belief in God, reduces his power to measure
up to his opportunities and responsibilities. If there
is at work in the world to-day anything that tends to

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 17

break this mainspring, it is the duty of the moral, as
well as the Christian, world to combat this influence
in every possible way.

I believe there is such a menace to fundamental
morality. The hypothesis to which the name of Dar-
win has been given — the hypothesis that links man to
the lower forms of life and makes him a lineal de-
scendant of the brute — is obscuring God and weaken-
ing all the virtues that rest upon the rehgious tie be-
tween God and man. Passing over, for the present,
all other phases of evolution and considering only that
part of the system which robs man of the dignity con-
ferred upon him by separate creation, when God
breathed into him the breath of life and he became the
first man, I venture to call attention to the demoraliz-
ing influence exerted by this doctrine.
f^ If we accept the Bible as true we have no difficulty;
in determining the origin of man. In the first chap-
ter of Genesis we read that God, after creating all
other things, said, " Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness ; and let him have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creep-
ing thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God cre-
ated man in his own image, in the image of God cre-
ated he him; male and female created he them.'*

The materialist has always rejected the Bible ac-
count of Creation and, during the last half century,
the Darwinian doctrine has been the means of shaking
the faith of millions^^t is important that man should
have a correct understanding of his line of descent.

18 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

Huxley calls it the " question of questions " for man-
kind. He says: "The problem which underlies all
others, and is more interesting than any other — is the
ascertainment of the place which man occupies in na-
ture and of his relation to the universe of things.
Whence our race has come, what are the limits of our
power over nature, and of nature*s power over us, to
what goal are we tending, are the problems which pre-
sent themselves anew with undiminished interest to
every man bom in the world."

The materialists deny the existence of God and seek
to explain man's presence upon the earth without a
creative act. They go back from man to the animals,
and from one form of life to another until they come
to the first germ of life; there they divide into two
schools, some believing that the first germ of life came
from another planet, others holding that it was the
result of spontaneous generation. One school answers
the arguments advanced by the other and, as they can-
not agree with each other, I am not compelled to agree
with either.

If it were necessary to accept one of these theories
I would prefer the first ; for, if we can chase the germ
of life off of this planet and out into space, we can
guess the rest of the way and no one can contradict
us. But, if we accept the doctrine of spontaneous gen-
eration we will have to spend our time explaining w^hy
spontaneous generation ceased to act after the first
germ of life was created. It is not necessary to pay
much attention to any theory that boldly eliminates
God; it does not deceive many. The mind revolts at

THE OEIGIN OF MAK 19

the idea of spontaneous generation; in all the researches
of the ages no scientist has found a single instance of
life that was not begotten by life. The materialist has
nothing but imagination to build upon ; he cannot hope
for company or encouragement.

But the Darwinian doctrine is more dangerous be- )
cause more deceptive. It permits one to beHeve in a v
God, but puts the creative act so far away that rever- /
ence for the Creator — even belief in Him — is likely to J
be lost. -^

Before commenting on the Darwinian hypothesis
let me refer you to the language of its author as it
applies to man. On page 180 of '' Descent of Man "
(Hurst & Company, Edition 1874), Darwin says:
" Our most ancient progenitors in the kingdom
of the Vertebrata, at which we are able to obtain
an obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group
of marine animals, resembling the larvae of the
existing Ascidians." r Then he suggests a line of de-
scent leading to the mt)nkey.^ And he does not even
permit us to indulge in a patriotic pride of ancestry;
instead of letting us descend from American monkeys,
he connects us with the European branch of the mon-
key family.

It will be noted, first, that he begins the summary
with the word " apparently," which the Standard Dic-
tionary defines: "as judged by appearances, without
passing upon its reality." His second sentence (fol-s^ ^
lowing the sentence quoted) turns upon the word ^^i
" probably," which is defined: " as far as the evidence \j
shows, presumably, likely." His works are full of j

20 THE ORIGIK OF MAK

words indicating uncertainty. The phrase "we may
well suppose," occurs over eight hundred times in his
two principal works. (See Herald & Presbyter,
November 22, 1914.) The eminent scientist is guess-
ing.

After locating our gorilla and chimpanzee ancestors
in Africa, he concludes that " it is useless to speculate
on this subject." If the uselessness of speculation had
occurred to him at the beginning of his investigation
he might have escaped responsibility for shaking the
faith of two generations by his guessing on the whole
subject of biology.

If we could divide the human race into two distinct
groups we might allow evolutionists to worship brutes
as ancestors but they insist on connecting all mankind
with the jungle. We have a right to protect our fam-
ily tree.

Having given Darwin's conclusions as to man's an-
cestry, I shall quote him to prove that his hypothesis is
not only groundless, but absurd and harmful to so-
ciety. It is groundless because there is not a single fact
in the universe that can be cited to prove that man is
descended from the lower animals. Darwin does noi
use facts ; he uses conclusions drawn from similarities.
He builds upon presumptions, probabilities and infer-
ences, and asks the acceptance of his hypothesis " not-
withstanding the fact that connecting links have nol
hitherto been discovered" (page 162). He advances
an hypothesis which, if true, would find support on
every foot of the earth's surface, but which, as a mat-
ter of fact, finds support nowhere. There are myriads

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 21

of living creatures about us, from insects too small
to be seen with the naked eye to the largest mammals,
and, yet, not one is in transition from one species to
another; every one is perfect. It is strange that
slight similarities could make him ignore gigantic dif-
ferences. The remains of nearly one hundred species
of vertebrate life have been found in the rocks, of
which more than one-half are found living to-day, and
none of the survivors show material change. The
word hypothesis is a synonym used by scientists for
the word guess ; it is more dignified in sound and more
imposing to the sight, but it has the same meaning as
the old-fashioned, every-day word, guess. If Darwin
had described his doctrine as a guess instead of calling
it an hypothesis, it would not have lived a year.*

Probably nothing impresses Darwin more than the
fact that at an early stage the foetus of a child cannot
be distinguished from the foetus of an ape, but why

^Dr. Etheridge, Fossiologist of the British Museum, says:^
" Nine-tenths of the talk of Evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not
founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This
museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views."

Prof. Beale, of King's College, London, says: "In support of
all naturalistic conjectures concerning man's origin, there is not
at this time a shadow of scientific evidence."

Prof. Fleischmann, of Erlangen, says : " The Darwinian theory
has in the realms of Nature not a single fact to confirm it. It is |
not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of '
the imagination,"

The January issue of " Science," 1922, contains a speech de-
livered at Toronto last December by Prof. William Bateson of
London before the American Association for the Advancement
of vScience. He says that science has faith in evolution but
doubts as to the origin of species.

22 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

should such a similarity in the beginning impress him
more than the difference at birth and the immeasurable
gulf between the two at forty? If science cannot de-
tect a difference, ktiown to exist, between the foetus
of an ape and the foetus of a child, it should not
ask us to substitute the inferences, the presump-
tions and the probabilities of science for the word of
God.

Science has rendered invaluable service to society;
her achievements are innumerable — and the hypotheses
of scientists should be considered with an open mind.
Their theories should be carefully examined and their
arguments fairly weighed, but the scientist cannot
compel acceptance of any argument he advances, ex-
cept as, judged upon its merits, it is convincing. Man
is infinitely more than science; science, as well as the
Sabbath, was made for man. It must be remembered,
also, that all sciences are not of equal importance.
Tolstoy insists that the science of " How to Live " is
more important than any other science, and is this not
true ? nt is better to trust in the Rock of Ages, than to
know the age of the rocks ^ it is better for one to know
\ that he is close to the Heavenly Father, than to know
j how^ far the stars in the heavens are apart. And is it
not just as important that the scientists who deal with
matter should respect the scientists who deal with
spiritual things, as that the latter should respect the
former? If it be true, as Paul declares, that "the
things that are seen are temporal *' while " the things
that are unseen are eternal," why should those who
deal with temporal things think themselves superior to

THE OEIGIN OF MAK 23

those who deal with the things that are eternal ? Why
should the Bible, which the centuries have not been
able to shake, be discarded for scientific works that s
have to be revised and corrected every few years ? j
The preference should be given to the Bible.

The two lines of work are parallel. There should
be no conflict between the discoverers of real truths,
because real truths do not conflict. Every truth har-
monizes with every other truth, but why should an
hypothesis, suggested by a scientist, be accepted as true
until its truth is established? Science should be the
last to make such a demand because science to be truly
science is classified knowledge ; it is the explanation of
facts. Tested by this definition, Darwinism is not
science at all; it is guesses strung together. There is
more science in the twenty-fourth verse of the first
chapter of Genesis (And God said, let the eartii bring
forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and
creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind;
and it was so. ) than in all that Darwin wrote.

It is no light matter to impeach the veracity of the
Scriptures in order to accept, not a truth — ^not even a
theory — ^but a mere hypothesis. Professor Huxley
says, "There is no fault to be found with Darwin's
method, but it is another thing whether he has fulfilled
all the conditions imposed by that method. Is it satis-
factorily proved that species may be originated by se-
lection ? That none of the phenomena exhibited by the
species are inconsistent with the origin of the species
in this way? If these questions can be answered in
the affirmative, Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the

24 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

ranks of hypothesis into that of theories ; but so long
as the evidence adduced falls short of enforcing that
affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new doctrine
must be content to remain among the former — an ex-
tremely valuable, and in the highest degree probable,
doctrine; indeed the only extant hypothesis which is
worth anything in a scientific point of view ; but still A
hypothesis, and not a theory of species." "After
much consideration," he adds, " and assuredly with no
bias against Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction
that, as the evidence now stands, it is not absolutely
proven that a group of animals, having all the charac-
ters exhibited by species in nature, has ever been origi-
nated by selection, whether artificial or natural."

But Darwin is absurd as well as groundless. He
announces two laws, which, in his judgment, explain
the development of man from the lowest form of ani-
mal life, viz., natural selection and sexual selection.
The latter has been abandoned by the modern believers
in evolution, but two illustrations, taken from Dar-
win's " Descent of Man," will show his unreliability as
a guide to the young. On page 587 of the 1874 edition,
he tries to explain man's superior mental strength (a
proposition more difficult to defend to-day than in
Darwin's time). His theory is that, ** the struggle be-
tween the males for the possession of the females"
helped to develop the male mind and that this superior
strength was transmitted by males to their male off-
spring.

After having shown, to his own satisfaction, how
sexual selection would account for the (supposed)

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 25

greater strength of the male mind, he turns his atten-"
tion to another question, namely, how did man become
a hairless animal ? This he accounts for also by sex-
ual selection — the females preferred the males with the
least hair (page 624). In a footnote on page 625 he
says that this view has been harshly criticized.
" Hardly any view advanced in this work," he says,
" has met with so much disfavour." A comment and
a question: First, Unless the brute females were very
different from the females as we know them, they
would not have agreed in taste. Some would " prob-
ably " have preferred males with less hair, others, " we
may well suppose," would have preferred males with
more hair. Those with more hair would naturally be
the stronger because better able to resist the weather.
But, second, how could the males have strengthened
their minds by fighting for the females if, at the same
time, the females were breeding the hair off by select-
ing the males? Or, did the males select for three
years and then allow the females to do the selecting
during leap year?

But, worse yet, in a later edition published by L. A.
Burt Company, a " supplemental note " is added to
discuss two letters which he thought supported the idea
that sexual selection transformed the hairy animal into
the hairless man. Darwin's correspondent (page 710)
reports that a mandril seemed to be proud of a bare
spot. Can anything be less scientific than trying to
guess what an animal is thinking about? It would
seem that this also was a subject about which it was
" useless to speculate."

26 THE OBIGIN OF MA:N

While on this subject it may be worth while to call
your attention to other fantastic imaginings of which
those are guilty who reject the Bible and enter the field
of speculation — ^fiction surpassing anything to be
found in the Arabian Nights. If one accepts the
Scriptural account of the creation, he can credit God
with the working of miracles and with the doing of
many things that man cannot understand. The evolu- •
tionist, however, having substituted what he imagines
to be a universal law for separate acts of creation must
explain everything. The evolutionst, not to go back
farther than life just now, begins with one or a few
invisible germs of life on the planet and imagines that
these invisible germs have, by the operation of what
they call "resident forces," unaided from without, de-
veloped into all that we see to-day. They cannot in a
lifetime explain the things that have to be explained, if
their hypothesis is accepted — a useless waste of time
even if explanation were possible.

Take the eye, for instance ; believing in the Mosaic
account, I believe that God made the eyes when He |
made man — not only made the eyes but carved out the
caverns in the skull in which they hang. It is easy for
the believer in the Bible to explain the eyes, because he
believes in a God who can do all things and, according
to the Bible, did create man as a part of a divine plan.

But how does the evolutionist explain the eye when
he leaves God out ? Here is the only guess that I have
seen — if you find any others I shall be glad to know of
them, as I am collecting the guesses of the evolution- j
fets. The evolutionist guesses that there was a time

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 27

when eyes were unknown — that is a necessary part of
the hypothesis. And since the eye is a universal pos-
session among living things the evolutionist guesses
that it came into being — not by design or by act of God
— but just happened, and how did it happen? I will
give you the guess — a piece of pigment, or, as some
say, a freckle appeared upon the skin of an animal that
had no eyes. This piece of pigment or freckle con-
verged the rays of the sun upon that spot and when the
little animal felt the heat on that spot it turned the spot
to the sun to get more heat. The increased heat irri-
tated the skin — so the evolutionists guess, and a nerve
came there and out of the nerve came the eye! Can
you beat it? But this only accounts for one eye ; there
must have been another piece of pigment or freckle
soon afterward and just in the right place in order to
give the animal two eyes.

And, according to the evolutionist, there was a time
when animals had no legs, and so the leg came by acci-
dent. How? Well, the guess is that a little animal
without legs was wiggling along on its belly one day
when it discovered a wart — it just happened so — and
it was in the right place to be used to aid it in locomo-
tion; so, it came to depend upon the wart, and use
finally developed it into a leg. And then another wart
and another leg, at the proper time — by accident — and
accidentally in the proper place. Is it not astonishing
that any person intelligent enough to teach school"
would talk such tommyrot to students and look serious
while doing so?

And yet I read only a few weeks ago, on page 124:

28 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

of a little book recently issued by a prominent New
York minister, the following:

" Man has grown up in this universe gradually de-
veloping his powers and functions as responses to his
environment. If he has eyes, so the biologists assure
us, it is because light waves played upon the skin and
eyes came out in answer; if he has ears it is because
the air waves were there first and the ears came out to
hear. Man never yet, according to the evolutionist,
has developed any power save as a reality called it into
being. There would be no fins if there were no water,
no wings if there were no air, no legs if there were no
land."

You see I only called your attention to forty per cent,
of the absurdities ; he speaks of eyes, ears, fins, wings
and legs — five. I only called attention to eyes and
legs — tw^o. The evolutionist guesses himself away
from God, but he only makes matters worse. How
long did the " light waves " have to play on the skin
before the eyes came out? The evolutionist is very
deliberate; he is long on time. He would certainly
give the eye thousands of years, if not millions, in
which to develop; but how could he be sure that the
light waves played all the time in one place or played
in the same place generation after generation until the
development was complete? And why did the light
waves quit playing when two eyes were perfected?
Why did they not keep on playing until there were eyes
all over the body? Why do they not play to-day, so
that we may see eyes in process of development? And
if the light waves created the eyes, why did they not

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 29

create them strong enough to bear the light? Why
did the light waves make eyes and then make eyelids
to keep the light out of the eyes?

And so with the ears. They must have gone in " to
hear " instead of out, and wasn't it lucky that they hap-
pened to go in on opposite sides of the head instead of
eater-cornered or at random? Is it not easier to be-
lieve in a God who can make the eye, the ear, the fin,
the wing, and the leg, as well as the light, the sound,
the air, the water and the land ?

There is such an abundance of ludicrous material
that it is hard to resist the temptation to continue illus-
trations indefinitely, but a few more will be sufficient.
In order that you may be prepared to ridicule these
pseudo-scientists who come to you with guesses instead
of facts, let me give you three recent bits of evolution-
ary lore.

Last November I was passing through Philadelphia
and read in an afternoon paper a report of an address
delivered in that city by a college professor employed
in extension work. Here is an extract from the
paper's account of the speech: "Evidence that early
men climbed trees with their feet lies in the way we
wear the heels of our shoes — more at the outside. A
baby can wiggle its big toe without wiggling its other
toes — an indication that it once used its big toe in
climbing trees." What a consolation it must be to
mothers to know that the baby is not to be blamed for
wiggling the big toe without wiggling the other toes.
It cannot help it, poor little thing; it is an inheritance
from " the tree man," so the evolutionists tell us.

30 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

And here is another extract: " We often dream of
falling. Those who fell out of the trees some fifty
thousand years ago and were killed, of course, had no
descendants. So those who fell and were not hurt, of
course, lived, and so we are never hurt in our dreams
of falling.'* Of course, if we were actually descended
from the inhabitants of trees, it would seem quite
likely that we descended from those that were not
killed in falling. But they must have been badly
frightened if the impression made upon their feeble
minds could have lasted for fifty thousand years and
still be vivid enough to scare us.

If the Bible said anything so idiotic as these guessers
put forth in the name of science, scientists would have
a great time ridiculing the sacred pages, but men who
scoff at the recorded interpretation of dreams by Jo-
seph and Daniel seem to be able to swallow the amus-
ing interpretations offered by the Pennsylvania pro-
fessor.

A few months ago the Sunday School Times quoted
a professor in an Illinois University as saying that the
great day in history was the day when a water puppy
crawled up on the land and, deciding to be a land
animal, became man's progenitor. If these scientific
speculators can agree upon the day they will probably
insist on our abandoning Washington's birthday, the
Fourth of July, and even Christmas, in order to join
with the whole world in celebrating "Water Puppy
Day."

Within the last few weeks the papers published a
dispatch from Paris to the effect that an "eminent

i

THE OEIGIN OP MAN 31

scientist " announced that he had communicated with
the spirit of a dog and learned from the dog that it
was happy. Must we believe this, too ?

But is the law of " natural selection " a sufficient
explanation, or a more satisfactory explanation, than
sexual selection ? It is based on the theory that where
there is an advantage in any characteristic, animals
that possess this characteristic survive and propagate
their kind. This, according to Darwin's argument,
leads to progress through the " survival of the fittest.'*
This law or principle (natural selection), so carefully
worked out by Darwin, is being given less and less
weight by scientists. Darwin himself admits that he
" perhaps attributed too much to the action of natural
selection and the survival of the fittest" (page 76).
John Burroughs, the naturalist, rejects it in a recent
magazine article. The followers of Darwin are trying
to retain evolution while rejecting the arguments that
led Darwin to accept it as an explanation of the varied
life on the planet. Some evolutionists reject Darwin's
line of descent and believe that man, instead of coming
from the ape, branched off from a common ancestor
farther back, but " cousin " ape is as objectionable as
" grandpa " ape.

While " survival of the fittest " may seem plausible
when applied to individuals of the same species, it af-
fords no explanation whatever, of the almost infinite
number of creatures that have come under man's ob-
servation. To believe that natural selection, sexual
selection or any other kind of selection can account for
the countless differences we see about us requires more

32 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

faith in chance than a Christian is required to have in
God.

Is it conceivable that the hawk and the humming-
bird, the spider and the honey bee, the turkey gobbler
and the mocking-bird, the butterfly and the eagle, the
ostrich and the wren, the tree toad and the elephant,
the giraffe and the kangaroo, the wolf and the lamb
should all be the descendants of a common ancestor?
Yet these and all other creatures must be blood rela-
tives if man is next of kin to the monkey.
>. If the evolutionists are correct; if it is true that all
that we see is the result of development from one or
a few invisible germs of life, then, in plants as well as
in animals there must be a line of descent connecting
all the trees and vegetables and flowers with a common
ancestry. Does it not strain the imagination to the
breaking point to believe that the oak, the cedar, the
pine and the palm are all the progeny of one ancient
seed and that this seed was also the ancestor of wheat
and com, potato and tomato, onion and sugar beet,
rose and violet, orchid and daisy, mountain flower and
magnolia? Is it not more rational to believe in God
and explain the varieties of life in terms of divine
power than to waste our lives in ridiculous attempts to
explain the unexplainable ? There is no mortification
in admitting that there are insoluble mysteries ; but it
is shameful to spend the time that God has given for
nobler use in vain attempts to exclude God from His
own universe and to find in chance a substitute for
God's power and wisdom and love.

While evolution in plant life and in animal life up to

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 33

the highest form of animal might, if there were proof
of it, be admitted without raising a presumption that
would compel us to give a brute origin to man, why
should we admit a thing of which there is no proof?
Why should we encourage the guesses of these specu-
lators and thus weaken our power to protest when they
attempt the leap from the monkey to man? Let the
evolutionist furnish his proof.

Although our chief concern is in protecting man
from the demoralization involved in accepting a brute
ancestry, it is better to put the advocates of evolution
upon the defensive and challenge them to produce
proof in support of their hypothesis in plant life and
in the animal world. They will be kept so busy trying
to find support for their hypothesis in the kingdoms
below man that they will have little time left to combat
the Word of God in respect to man's origin. Evolu-
tion joins issue with the Mosaic account of creation.
God's law, as stated in Genesis, is reproduction accord-
ing to kind; evolution implies reproduction not accord-
ing to kind. While the process of change implied in
evolution is covered up in endless eons of time it is
change nevertheless. The Bible does not say that re-
production shall be nearly according to kind or seem-
ingly according to kind. The statement is positive
that it is according to kind, and that does not leave any
room for the changes however gradual or impercep-
tible that are necessary to support the evolutionary
hypothesis.

We see about us everywhere and always proof of
the Bible law, viz., reproduction according to kind ; we

34 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

find nothing in the universe to support Darwin's doc-
trine of reproducton other than of kind.

If you question the possibility of such changes as
the Darwinian doctrine supposes you are reminded that
t?ie scientific speculators have raised the time limit.
"If ten million years are not sufficient, take twenty,"
they say: " If fifty million years are not enough take
one or two hundred millions." That accuracy is not j
essential in such guessing may be inferred from the j
fact that the estimates of the time that has elapsed
since life began on the earth, vary from less than
twenty-five million years to more than three hundred
million. Darwin estimated this period at two hundred
million years while Darwin's son estimated it at fifty-
seven million.

It requires more than millions of years to account
for the varieties of life that inhabit the earth; it re-
quires a Creator, unlimited in power, unlimited intelli-
gence, and unlimited love.

But the doctrine of evolution is sometimes carried
farther than that. A short while ago Canon Barnes,
of Westminster Abbey, startled his congregation by an
interpretation of evolution that ran like this: " It now
seems highly probable (probability again) that from
some fundamental stuff in the universe the electrons
arose. From them came matter. From matter, life
emerged. From life came mind. From mind, spiri-
tual consciousness was developing. There was a time
when matter, life and mind, and the soul of man were
not, but now they are. Each has arisen as a part of
the vast scheme planned by God." (An American

THE OEIGIN OF MA2^ 36

professor in a Christian college has recently expressed
himself along substantially the same lines.)

But what has God been doing since the " stuff " be-
gan to develop? The verbs used by Canon Barnes
indicate an internal development unaided from above.
"Arose, came, emerged, etc.,'* all exclude the idea that
God is within reach or call in man's extremity.

When I was a boy in college the materialists began
with matter separated into infinitely small particles and
every particle separated from every other particle by
distance infinitely great. But now they say that it
takes 1,740 electrons to make an atom of infinite fine-
ness. God, they insist, has not had anything to do
with this universe since 1,740 electrons formed a
chorus and sang, " We'll be an atom by and by."

It requires measureless credulity to enable one to
believe that all that we see about us came by chance,
by a series of happy-go-lucky accidents. If only an
infinite God could have formed hydrogen and oxygen
and united them in just the right proportions to pro-
duce water — the daily need of every living thing —
scattered among the flowers all the colours of the rain-
bow and every variety of perfume, adjusted the mock-
ing-bird's throat to its musical scale, and fashioned a
soul for man, why should we want to imprison such a
Cxod in an impenetrable past? This is a living world;
why not a living God upon the throne? Why not
allow Him to work nozvf

Darwin is so sure that his theory is correct that he
is ready to accuse the Creator of trying to deceive man
if the theory is not sound. On page 41 he says: " To

36 THE OEIGIN OF MAK

take any other view is to admit that our structure and
that of all animals about us, is a mere snare to entrap
our judgment;" as if the Almighty were in duty
bound to make each species so separate from every
other that no one could possibly be confused by resem-
blances. There would seem to be differences enough.
To put man in a class with the chimpanzee because of
any resemblances that may be found is so unreasonable
that the masses have never accepted it.

If we see houses of different size, from one room to
one hundred, we do not say that the large houses grew
out of small ones, but that the architect that could plan
one could plan all.

But a groundless hypothesis— even an absurd one —
would be unworthy of notice if it did no harm. This
hypothesis, however, does incalculable harm. It
teaches that Christianity impairs the race physically.
That was the first implication at which I revolted. It
led me to review the doctrine and reject it entirely. If
hatred is the law of man's development ; that is, if man
has reached his present perfection by a cruel law under
which the strong kill off the weak — then, if there is
any logic that can bind the human mind, we must turn
backward toward the brute if we dare to substitute
the law of love for the law of hate. That is the con-
clusion that I reached and it is the conclusion that Dar-
win himself reached. On pages 149-50 he says:
" With savages the weak in body or mind are soon
eliminated ; and those that survive commonly exhibit a
vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the
other hand, do our utmost to check the progress of

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 87

elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the
maimed and the sick ; we institute poor laws ; our med-
ical experts exert their utmost skill to save the lives of
every one to the last moment. There is reason to be-
lieve that vaccination has preserved thousands who
from weak constitutions would have succumbed to
smallpox. Thus the weak members of civilized socie-
ties propagate their kind. No one who has attended to
the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that tliis
must be highly injurious to the race of man."

This confession deserves analysis. First, he com-
mends, by implication, the savage method of eliminat-
ing the weak, while, by implication, he condemns
" civilized men " for prolonging the life of the weak.
He even blames vaccination because it has preserved
thousands who might otherwise have succumbed (for
the benefit of the race?). Can you imagine anything
more brutal? And then note the low level of the ar-
gument. " No one who has attended the breeding of
domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly
injurious to the race of man.'* All on a brute
basis.

His hypothesis breaks down here. The minds
which, according to Darwin, are developed by natural
selection and sexual selection, use their power to sus-
pend the law by which they have reached their high
positions. Medicine is one of the greatest of the
sciences and its chief object is to save life and
strengthen the weak. That, Darwin complains, inter-
feres with "the survival of the fittest." If he com-
plains of vaccination, what would he say of the more

:er?

38 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

recent discovery of remedies for typhoid fever, yellow
fever and the black plague ? And what would he think
of saving weak babies by pasteurizing milk and of the
efforts to find a specific for tuberculosis and cancer?
Can such a barbarous doctrine be sound ?

But Darwin's doctrine is even more destruct
His heart rebels against the *' hard reason " upon
which his heartless hypothesis is built. He says:
" The aid which we feel impelled to give to the help-
less is mainly the result of the instinct of sympathy,
which was ariginally acquired as a part of the social
instincts, but subsequently rendered in the manner in-
dicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor
could we check our sympathy even at the urging of
hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part
of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself while
performing an operation, for he knows he is acting for
the good of his patient ; but if we were to intentionally
neglect the weak and the helpless, it could be only for
a contingent benefit, with overwhelming present evil.
We must therefore bear the undoubted bad effects of
the weak surviving and propagating their kind."

The moral nature which, according to Darwin, is also
developed by natural selection and sexual selection, re-
pudiates the brutal law to which, if his reasoning is
correct, it owes its origin. Can that doctrine be ac-
cepted as scientific when its author admits that we can-
not apply it " without deterioration in the noblest part
of our nature " ? On the contrary, civilization is
measured by the moral revolt against the cruel doctrine
developed by Darwin.

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 39

Darwin rightly decided to suspend his doctrine, even
at the risk of impairing the race. But some of his
followers are more hardened. A few years ago I read
a book in which the author defended the use of alcohol
on the ground that it rendered a service to society by
killing off the degenerates. And this argument was
advanced by a scientist in the fall of 1920 at a congress
against alcohol.

The language which I have quoted proves that Dar-
winism is directly antagonistic to Christianity, which
boasts of its eleemosynary institutions and of the care
it bestows on the weak and the helpless. Darwin, by
putting man on a brute basis and ignoring spiri-
tual values, attacks the very foundations of Chris-
tianity.

Those who accept Darwin's views are in the habit of
saying that it need not lessen their reverence for God
to believe that the Creator fashioned a germ of life and
endowed it with power to develop into what we sec to-
day. It is true that a God who could make man as he
is, could have made him by the long-drawn-out process
suggested by Darwin. To do either would require in-
finite power, beyond the ability of man to compre-
hend. But what is the natural tendency of Darwin's
doctrine ?

Will man's attitude toward Darwin's God be the
same as it would be toward the God of Moses? Will
the believer in Darwin's God be as conscious of God's
presence in his daily life? Will he be as sensitive to
God's will and as anxious to find out what God wants
him to do ?

t

I

/

40 THE OEIGIN OF MAK

Will the believer in Darwin*s God be as fervent in
prayer and as open to the reception of divine sugges-
tions ?

I shall later trace the influence of Darwinism on
world peace when the doctrine is espoused by one bold
enough to carry it to its logical conclusion, but I must
now point out its natural and logical effect upon young
Christians.

A boy is bom in a Christian family ; as soon as he is
able to join words together into sentences his mother
teaches him to lisp the child's prayer: " Now I lay me
down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I
should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to
take." A little later the boy is taught the Lord's
Prayer and each day he lays his petition before the
Heavenly Father: " Give us this day our daily bread " ;
" Lead us not into temptation " ; *' Deliver us from
evil " ; " Forgive our trespasses " ; etc.

He talks with God. He goes to Sunday school and
learns that the Heavenly Father is even more kind than
earthly parents ; he hears the preacher tell how precious
our lives are in the sight of God — ^how even a sparrow
cannot fall to the ground without His notice. All his
faith is built upon the Book that informs him that he
is made in the image of God ; that Christ came to re-
veal God to man and to be man's Saviour.

Then he goes to college and a learned professor
leads him through a book 600 pages thick, largely
devoted to resemblances between man and the beasts
about him. His attention is called to a point in the
ear that is like a point in the ear of the ourang, to ca-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 41

nine teeth, to muscles like those by which a horse
moves his ears.

He is then told that everything found in a human
brain is found in miniature in a brute brain.

And how about morals ? He is assured that the de-
velopment of the moral sense can be explained on a
brute basis without any act of, or aid from, God.
(See pages 113-114.)

No mention of religion, the only basis for morality;
not a suggestion of a sense of responsibility to God —
nothing but cold, clammy materialism! Darwinism
transforms the Bible into a story book and reduces
Christ to man's level. It gives him an ape for an an-
cestor on His mother's side at least and, as many evo-
lutionists believe, on His Father's side also.

The instructor gives the student a new family tree
millions of years long, with its roots in the water
(marine animals) and then sets him adrift, with infi-
nite capacity for good or evil but with no light to
guide him, no compass to direct him and no chart of
the sea of life!

No wonder so large a percentage of the boys and
girls who go from Sunday schools and churches to col-
leges (sometimes as high as seventy-five per cent.)
never return to religious work. How can one feel
God's presence in his daily life if Darwin's reasoning
is sound? This restraining influence, more potent
than any external force, is paralyzed when God is put
so far away. How can one believe in prayer if,
for millions of years, God has never touched a human
life or laid His hand upon the destiny of the human

42 THE ORIGIK OF MAN

race? What mockery to petition or implore, if God
neither hears nor answers. Elijah taunted the
prophets of Baal when their god failed to answer with
fire; ** Cry aloud/' he said, ** peradventure he sleep-
eth." Darwin mocks the Christians even more cruelly ;
he tells us that our God has been asleep for millions of
years. Even worse, he does not affirm that Jehovah
was ever awake. Nowhere does he collect for the
reader the evidences of a Creative Power and call upon
man to worship and obey God. The great scientist is,
if I may borrow a phrase, '' too much absorbed in the
things infinitely small to consider the things infinitely
great." Darwinism chills the spiritual nature and
quenches the fires of religious enthusiasm. If the
proof in support of Darwinism does not compel accept-
ance— and it does not — why substitute it for an ac-
count of the Creation that links man directly with the
Creator and holds before him an example to be imi-
tated? As the eminent theologian, Charles Hodge,
says: "The Scriptural doctrine (of Creation) ac-
counts for the spiritual nature of man, and meets all
his spiritual necessities. It gives him an object of
adoration, love and confidence. It reveals the Being
on whom his indestructible sense of responsibility ter-
minates. The truth of this doctrine, therefore, rests
not only upon the authority of the Scriptures but on
the very constitution of our nature."

I have spoken of what would seem to be the natural
and logical effect of the Darwin hypothesis on the
minds of the young. This view is confirmed by its
actual effect on Darwin himself. In his " Life and

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 43

Letters," he says: " I am much engaged, an old man,
and out of health, and I cannot spare time to answer
your questions fully — nor indeed can they be an-
swered. Science has nothing to do wdth Christ, ex-
cept in so far as the habit of scientific research makes
a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself, I
do not believe that there ever has been any revelation.
As for a future life, every man must judge for himself
between conflicting vague probabilities." It will be
seen that science, according to Darwin, has nothing to
do virith Christ (except to discredit revelation w^hich
makes Christ's mission known to men). Darwin him-
self does not believe that there has ever been any reve-
lation, which, of course, excludes Christ. It will be
seen also that he has no definite views on the future
life — " every man," he says, " must judge for himself
between conflicting vague probabilities f'

It is fair to conclude that it was his own doctrine
that led him astray, for in the same connection (in
"Life and Letters") he says that when aboard the
Beagle he was called " orthodox and was heartily
laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the
Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of
morality." In the same connection he thus describes
his change and his final attitude: " When thus reflect-
ing I feel compelled to look to a First Cause, having
an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that
of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist. This
conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as
far as I can remember, when I wrote the * Origin of
Species'; and it is since that time that it has very

44 THE OEIGIN OF MAK

gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker.
But then arises the doubt: Can the mind of man,
which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a
mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be
trusted when it draws such grand conclusions ?

" I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such
abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of
all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be
content to remain an Agnostic."

A careful reading of the above discloses the gradual
transition wrought in Darwin himself by the unsup-
ported hypothesis which he launched upon the world,
or which he endorsed with such earnestness and indus-
try as to impress his name upon it He was regarded
as ''orthodox'^ when he was young; he was even
laughed at for quoting the Bible '' as an unanswerable
authority on some point of morality." In the begin-
ning he regarded himself as a Theist and felt com-
pelled " to look to a First Cause, having an intelligent
mind in some degree analogous to that of man."

This conclusion, he says, was strong in his mind
when he wrote " The Origin of Species," but he ob-
serves that since that time this conclusion very gradu-
ally became weaker, and then he unconsciously brings
a telling indictment against his own hypothesis. He
says, ''Can the mind of man (which, according to his
belief, has been developed from a mind as low as that
possessed by the lowest animals) be trusted when it
draws such grand conclusions f " He first links man
with the animals, and then, because of this supposed
connection, estimates man's mind by brute standards.

THE OEIGIK OF MAN 46

Agnosticism is the natural attitude of the evolutionist.
How can a brute mind comprehend spiritual things?
It makes a tremendous difference what a man tliinks
about his origin whether he looks up or down. Who
will say, after reading these words, that it is immaterial
what man thinks about his origin? Who will deny
that the acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis shuts
out the higher reasonings and the larger conceptions
of man?

On the very brink of the grave, after he had ex-
tracted from his hypothesis all the good that there was
in it and all the benefit that it could confer, he is help-
lessly in the dark, and " cannot pretend to throw the
least light on such abstruse problems." When he be-
lieved in God, in the Bible, in Christ and in a future
life there were no mysteries that disturbed him, but a
guess with nothing in the universe to support it swept
him away from his moorings and left him in his old
age in the midst of mysteries that he thought insoluble.
He must content himself with Agnosticism. What
can Darwinism ever do to compensate any one for the
destruction of faith in God, in His Word, in His Son,
and of hope of immortality?

It would seem sufficient to quote Darwin against
himself and to cite the confessed effect of the doctrine
as a sufficient reason for rejecting it, but the situation
is a very serious one and there is other evidence that
should be presented.

James H. Leuba, a professor of Psychology in Bryn
Mawr College, Pennsylvania, wrote a book five years
ago, entitled "Belief in God and Immortality." It

46 THE OEIGIN OF MAN |

was published by Sherman French & Co., of Boston,
and repubHshed by The Open Court PubHshing Com-
pany of Chicago. Every Christian preacher should^
procure a copy of this book and it should be in the
hands of every Christian layman who is anxious to aid |
in the defense of the Bible against its enemies. Leuba
has discarded beUef in a personal God and in personal
immortality. He asserts that belief in a personal God
and personal immortality is declining in the United j
States, and he furnishes proof, which, as long as it h
unchallenged, seems conclusive. He takes a book con- |
taining the names of fifty-five hundred scientists — the
names of practically all American scientists of promi-
nence, he afBrms — and sends them questions. Upon
the answers received he asserts that more than one-
half of the prominent scientists of the United States,:]
those teaching Biology, Psychology, Geology and His-
tory especially, have discarded belief in a personal G(
and in personal immortality.

This is what the doctrine of evolution is doing foi
those who teach our children. They first discard the ^
Mosaic account of man's creation, and they do it on the ;
ground that there are no miracles. This in itself con-!
stitutes a practical repudiation of the Bible; the mir-'
acles of the Old and New Testament cannot be cut out
without a mutilation that is equivalent to rejection. 1
They reject the supernatural along with the miracle,
and with the supernatural the inspiration of the Bible
and the authority that rests upon inspiration. If these "
believers in evolution are consistent and have the cour-
age to carry their doctrine to its logical conclusion,

THE ORIGIN OP MAN 47

they reject the virgin birth of Christ and the resurrec-
tion. They may still regard Christ as an unusual man,
but they will not make much headway in converting
people to Christianity, if they declare Jesus to be noth-
ing more than a man and either a deliberate impostor
or a deluded enthusiast.

The evil influence of these Materialistic, Atheistic or
Agnostic professors is disclosed by further investiga-
tion made by Leuba. He questioned the students of
nine representative colleges, and upon their answers de-
clares that, while only fifteen per cent, of the freshmen
have discarded the Christian religion, thirty per cent,
of the juniors and that forty to forty-five per cent, of
the men graduates have abandoned the cardinal prin-
ciples of the Christian faith. Can Christians be indif-
ferent to such statistics? Is it an immaterial thing
that so large a percentage of the young men who go
from Christian homes into institutions of learning
should go out from these institutions with the spiritual
element eliminated from their lives? What shall it
profit a man if he shall gain all the learning of the
schools and lose his faith in God ?

To show how these evolutionists undermine the
faith of students let me give you an illustration that
recently came to my attention: A student in one of the
largest State universities of the nation recently gave
me a printed speech delivered by the president of the
university, a year ago this month, to 3,600 students,
and printed and circulated by the Student Christian
Association of the institution. The student who gave
me the speech marked the following paragraph : "And,

48 THE OEIQIN OP MAN

again, religion must not be thought of as something
that is inconsistent with reasonable, scientific thinking
in regard to the nature of the universe. I go so far
as to say that, if you cannot reconcile religion with
the things taught in biology, in psychology, or in the
other fields of study in this university, then you should
throw your religion av/ay. Scientific truth is here to
stay." What about the Bible, is it not here to stay?
If he had stopped with the first sentence, his language
might not have been construed to the injury of re-
ligion, because religion is not " inconsistent with rea-
sonable, scientific thinking in regard to the nature of
the universe." There is nothing unreasonable about
Giristianity, and there is nothing unscientific about
Christianity. No scientific fact — no fact of any other
kind can disturb religion, because facts are not in con-
flict with each other. It is guessing by scientists and
so-called scientists that is doing the harm. And it is
guessing that is endorsed by this distinguished college
president (a D. D., too, as well as an LL. D. and a
Ph. D.) when he says, " I go so far as to say that,
if you cannot reconcile religion with the things taught
in biology, in psychology, or in the other fields of study
in this university, then you should throw your religion
away." What does this mean, except that the books
on biology and on other scientific subjects used in that
university are to be preferred to the Bible in case of
conflict? The student is told, "throw your religion
away," if he cannot reconcile it (the Bible, of
course,) with the things taught in biology, psychology,
etc. Books on biology change constantly, likewise

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 49

books on psychology, and yet they are held before the
students as better authority than the unchanging Word
of God.

Is any other proof needed to show the irreligious in-
fluence exerted by Darwinism applied to man ? At the
University of Wisconsin (so a Methodist preacher
told me) a teacher told his class that the Bible was a
collection of myths. When I brought the matter to
the attention of the President of the University, he
criticized me but avoided all reference to the professor.
At Ann Arbor a professor argued with students against
reHgion and asserted that no thinking man could
beheve in God or the Bible. At Columbia (I learned
this from a Baptist preacher) a professor began his
course in geology by telling his class to throw away all
that they had learned in the Sunday school. There is
a professor in Yale of whom it is said that no one
leaves his class a believer in God. (This came from a
young man who told me that his brother was being led
away from the Christian faith by this professor.) A
father (a Congressman) tells me that a daughter on
her return from Wellesley told him that nobody be-
lieved in the Bible stories now. Another father (a
Congressman) tells me of a son whose faith was un-
dermined by this doctrine in a Divinity School. Three
preachers told me of having their interest in the sub-
ject aroused by the return of their children from col-
lege with their faith shaken. The Northern Baptists
have recently, after a spirited contest, secured the
adoption of a Confession of Faith: it was opposed by
the evolutionists.

1

60 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

In Kentucky the fight is on among the Disciples, and
it is becoming more and more acute in the Northern
branches of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches.
" A young preacher, just out of a theological seminary,
who did not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, was
recently ordained in Western New York. Last April
I met a young man Vv^ho was made an atheist by two
teachers in a Christian college.

These are only a few illustrations that have come
under my own observation — nearly all of them within
a year. What is to be done? Are the members of
the various Christian churches willing to have the
power of the pulpit paralyzed by a false, absurd and
ridiculous doctrine which is without support in the
written Word of God and without support also in na-
ture? Is "thus saith the Lord" to be supplanted by
guesses and speculations and assumptions? I submit
three propositions for the consideration of the Chris-
tians of the nation:

First, the preachers who are to break the bread of
life to the lay members should believe that man has in
him the breath of the Almighty, as the Bible declares,
and not the blood of the brute, as the evolutionists
affirm. He should also believe in the virgin birth of
the Saviour.

Second, none but Christians in good standing and
with a spiritual conception of life should be allowed to
teach in Christian schools. Church schools are worse
than useless if they bring students under the influence
of those who do not believe in the religion upon which j
the Church and church schools are built. Atheism j

THE OETGIN OF MAK 61

and Agnosticism are more dangerous when hidden
under the cloak of reHgion than when they are exposed
to view.

Third, in schools supported by taxation we should
have a real neutrality wherever neutrality in religion
is desired. If the Bible cannot be defended in these
schools it should not be attacked, either directlv or
under the guise of philosophy or science. The neu-
trality which we now have is often but a sham; it
carefully excludes the Christian religion but per-
mits the use of the schoolrooms for the destruction
of faith and for the teaching of materialistic doc-
trines.

It is not sufficient to say that some believers in Dar-
winism retain their belief in Christianity; some sur-
vive smallpox. As we avoid smallpox because many
die of it, so we should avoid Darwinism because it
leads many astray.

\If it is contended that an instructor has a right to
teach anything he likes, I reply that the parents who
pay the salary have a right to decide what shall be
taught. To continue the illustration used above, a
person can expose himself to the smallpox if he desires
to do so, but he has no right to communicate it to
others. So a man can believe anything he pleases but
he has no right to teach it against the protest of his
employers.

Acceptance of Darwin's doctrine tends to destroy
one's belief in immortality as taught by the Bible. If
there has been no break in the line between man and
the beasts — ^no time when by the act of the Heavenly

52 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

Father man became " a living Soul," at what period in
man's development was he endowed with the hope of
a future life? And, if the brute theory leads to the
abandonment of belief in a future life with its rewards
and punishments, what stimulus to righteous living is
offered in its place ?

Darwinism leads to a denial of God. Nietzsche
carried Darwinism to its logical conclusion and it
made him the most extreme of anti-Christians. I had
read extracts from his writings — enough to acquaint
me with his sweeping denial of God and of the Saviour
— but not enough to make me familiar with his philos-
ophy.

As the war progressed I became more and more
impressed with the conviction that the German propa-
ganda rested upon a materialistic foundation. I se-
cured the writings of Nietzsche and found in them a
defense, made in advance, of all the cruelties and
atrocities practiced by the militarists of Germany.
Nietzsche tried to substitute the worship of the " Su-
perman" for the worship of God. He not only re-
jected the Creator, but he rejected all moral standards.
He praised war and eulogized hatred because it led to
war. He denounced sympathy and pity as attributes
unworthy of man. He believed that the teachings of
Christ made degenerates and, logical to the end, he
regarded Democracy as the refuge of weaklings. He
saw in man nothing but an animal and in that animal
the highest virtue he recognized was ** The Will to
Power" — a will which should know no let or hin-
drance, no restraint or limitation.

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 63

Nietzsche's philosophy would convert the world into
a ferocious conflict between beasts, each brute tram-
pling ruthlessly on everything in his way. In his book
entitled " Joyful Wisdom/' Nietzsche ascribes to Na-
poleon the very same dream of power — Europe under
one sovereign and that sovereign the master of the
world — that lured the Kaiser into a sea of blood from
which he emerged an exile seeking security under a
foreign flag. Nietzsche names Darwin as one of the
three great men of his century, but tries to deprive
him of credit ( ?) for the doctrine that bears his name
by saying that Hegel made an earlier announcement of
it. Nietzsche died hopelessly insane, but his philos-
ophy has wrought the moral ruin of a multitude, if it is
not actually responsible for bringing upon the world its
greatest war.

His philosophy, if it is worthy the name of philos-
ophy, is the ripened fruit of Darwinism — and a tree is
known by its fruit.

In 1900 — over twenty years ago — while an Interna-
tional Peace Congress was in session in Paris the fol-
lowing editorial appeared in UUnivers:

" The spirit of peace has fled the earth because evo-
lution has taken possession of it. The plea for peace
in past years has been inspired by faith in the divine
nature and the divine origin of man; men were then
looked upon as children of one Father and war, there-
fore, was fratricide. But now that men are looked
upon as children of apes, what matters it whether they
are slaughtered or not ? **

I have given you above the words of a French writer

54 THE OEIGIN OF MAH

published twenty years ago. I have just found in a
book recently published by a prominent English writer
words along the same line, only more comprehensive.
The corroding influence of Darwinism has spread as
the doctrine has been increasingly accepted. In the
American preface to " The Glass of Fashion " these
words are to be found: " Darwinism not only justifies
the sensualist at the trough and Fashion at her glass ;
it justifies Prussianism at the cannon's mouth and Bol-
shevism at the prison-door. If Darwinism be true, if
Mind is to be driven out of the universe and accident
accepted as a sufficient cause for all the majesty and
glory of physical nature, then there is no crime or vio-
lence, however abominable in its circumstances and
however cruel in its execution, which cannot be justi-
fied by success, and no triviality, no absurdity of Fash-
ion which deserves a censure: more — there is no act of
disinterested love and tenderness, no deed of self-sac-
rifice and mercy, no aspiration after beauty and excel-
lence, for which a single reason can be adduced in
logic."

To destroy the faith of Christians and lay the foun-
dation for the bloodiest war in history would seem
enough to condemn Darwinism, but there are still two
other indictments to bring against it. First, that it
is the basis of the gigantic class struggle that Is now
shaking society throughout the world. Both the capi--
tallst and the labourer are Increasingly class conscious.
Why? Because the doctrine of the "Individual effi-
cient for himself " — ^the brute doctrine of the " sur-
vival of the fittest " — Is driving men into a life-aud-

THE OEIGm OF MAH 65

death struggle from which sympathy and the spirit
of brotherhood are eHminated. It is transforming the
industrial world into a slaughter-house.

Benjamin Kidd, in a masterful work, entitled, ** The
Science of Power," points out how Darwinism fur-
nished Neitzsche with a scientific basis for his godless
system of philosophy and is demoralizing industry.

He also quotes eminent English scientists to support
the last charge in the indictment, namely, that Darwin-
ism robs the reformer of hope. Its plan of operation
is to improve the race by *' scientific breeding '* on a
purely physical basis. A few hundred years may be
required — possibly a few thousand — but what is time
to one who carries eons in his quiver and envelopes his
opponents in the *' Mist of Ages " ?

Kidd w^ould substitute the '' Emotion of the Ideal "
for scientific breeding and thus shorten the time nec-
essary for the triumph of a social reform. He counts
one or two generations as sufHcient. This is an enor-
mxous advance over Darwin's doctrine, but Christ's
plan is still more encouraging. A man can be bom
again; the springs of life can be cleansed instantly so
that the heart loves the things that it formerly hated
and hates the things that it once loved. If this is true
of one, it can be true of any mimher. Thus, a nation
can be born in a day if the ideals of the people can be
changed.

Many have tried to harmonize Darwinism with the
Bible, but these efforts, while honest and sometimes
even agonizing, have not been successful. How could
they be when the natural and inevitable tendency of

56 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

Darwinism is to exalt the mind at the expense of the
heart, to overestimate the reUabiUty of the reason as
compared with faith and to impair confidence in the
Bible. The mind is a machine ; it has no morals. It
obeys its owner as willingly when he plots to kill as
when he plans for service.

The Theistic evolutionist who tries to occupy a mid-
dle ground between those who accept the Bible account
of creation and those who reject God entirely reminds
one of a traveller in the mountains, who, having fallen
half-way down a steep slope, catches hold of a frail
bush. It takes so much of his strength to keep from
going lower that he is useless as an aid to others.
Those who have accepted evolution in the belief that it
was not anti-Christian may well revise their conclu-
sions in view of the accumulating evidence of its bane-
ful influence.

Darwinism discredits the things that are supernatu-
ral and encourages the worship of the intellect — an
idolatry as deadly to spiritual progress as the worship
of images made by human hands. The injury that it
does would be even greater than it is but for the moral
momentum acquired by the student before he comes
under the blighting influence of the doctrine.

Many instances could be cited to show how the the-
ory that man descended from the brute has, when de-
liberately adopted, driven reverence from the heart and
made young Christians agnostics and sometimes athe-
ists— depriving them of the joy, and society of the
service, that come from altruistic effort inspired by
religion.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 57

I have recently read of a pathetic case in point. In
the Encyclopaedia Americana you will find a
sketch of the life of George John Romanes, from
which the following extract is taken: " Romanes,
George John, English scientist. In 1879 he was
elected fellow of the Royal Society and in 1S7S pub-
lished, under the pseudonym * Physicus/ a work en-
titled, *A Candid Examination of Theism,' in which
he took up a somewhat defiant atheistic position. Sul>
sequently his views underwent considerable change ; he
revised the * Candid Examination,' and, toward the
close of his life, was engaged on *A Candid Examina-
tion of Religion,' in which he returned to theistic be-
liefs. His notes for this work were published after his
death, under the title * Thoughts on Religion,* edited
by Canon Gore. Romanes was an ardent supporter of
Darwin and the evolutionists and in various works
sought to extend evolutionary principles to mind, both
m the lower animals and in the man. He wrote very
extensively on modem biological theories."

Let me use Romanes' own language to describe the
disappointing experiences of this intellectual '* prodigal
son." On page 180 of "Thoughts on Religion"
(written, as above stated, just before his death but not
published until after his demise) he says, " The views
that I entertained on this subject (Plan in Revelation)
when an undergraduate (/. e., the ordinary orthodox
views) were abandoned in the presence of the tlieory
of Evolution."

It was the doctrine of Evolution that led him astray.
He attempted to employ reason to the exclusion of

68 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

faith — ^wlth the usual result. He abandoned prayer,
as he explains on pages 143 and 143 : " Even the sim-
plest act of will in regard to religion — that of prayer —
has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of
a century, simply because it has seemed impossible to
pray, as it were, hypothetically, that, much as I have
always desired to be able to pray, I cannot will the at-
tempt. To justify myself for what my better judg-
ment has often seemed to be essentially irrational, I
have ever made sundry excuses/' " Others have
doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I think,
that of an undue regard to reason as against heart and
will — undue, I mean, if so it be that Christianity is
true, and the conditions to faith in it have been of
divine ordination.'*

In time he tired of the husks of materialism and
started back to his Father's house. It was a w^eary
journey but as he plodded along, his appreciation of
the heart's part increased until, on pages 153 and 153,
he says, " It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual
part of man to be ' higher ' than the animal, whatever
our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all feel
the moral part of man to be * higher ' than the intel-
lectual, whatever our theory of either may be. It is
also a fact that we all similarly feel the spiritual to be
* higher ' than the moral, whatever our theory of re-
ligion may be. It is what we understand by man's
moral, and still more his spiritual, qualities that go to
constitute character. And it is astonishing how in all
walks of life it is character that tells in the long run."

On page 150 he answered Huxley's attack on faith.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 59

He says, " Huxley, in ' Lay Sermons,' says that faith
has been proved a * cardinal sin ' by science. Now this
is true enough of credulity, superstition, etc., and
science has done no end of good in developing our
ideas of method, evidence, etc. But this is all on the
side of intellect * Faith ' is not touched by such facts
or considerations. And what a terrible hell science
would have made of the world, if she had abolished the
' spirit of faith,' even in human relations."

In the days of his apostasy he " took it for granted,"
he says on page 164, " that Christianity was played
out." When once his eyes were reopened he vied witli
Paul himself in recognizing the superior quality of
love. On page 163 he quoted the eloquent lines of
Bourdillon :

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one ;
Yet the light of a whole world dies

With the setting sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one ;
Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

Having quoted this noble sentiment he adds: " Love
is known to be all this. How great then, is Christian-
ity, as being the religion of love, and causing men to
believe both in the cause of love's supremacy and the
infinity of God's love to man."

But Romanes still clung to Evolution and, so far as
his book discloses, his mind would never allow his
heaxt to commune with Darwin's far-away God, whose

60 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

creative power Romanes could not doubt but whose
daily presence he could not admit without abandoning
his theory.

His is a typical case, but many of the wanderers
never return to the fold; they are lost sheep. If the
doctrine were demonstrated to be true its acceptance
would, of course, be obligatory, but how can one bring
himself to assent to a series of assumptions when such
a course is accompanied by such a tremendous risk of
spiritual loss?

If, as it does in so many instances, it causes the
student to choose Darwinism, with its intellectual
delusions, and reject the Bible, with the incalculable
blessings that its heart-culture brings, what minister of
the Gospel or Christian professor can justify himself
before the bar of conscience if, by impairing confidence
in the Word of God, he wrecks human souls? All the
intellectual satisfaction that Darwinism ever brought
to those who have accepted it will not offset the sorrow
that darkens a single life from which the brute theory
of descent has shut out the sunshine of God's presence
and the companionship of Christ. Here, too, we have
the testimony of the distinguished scientist from whom
I have been quoting. In his first book — the attack on
Theism — he says: (page 29, "Thoughts on Religion")
" I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual
negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of
loveliness; and, although from henceforth the precept
to 'Work while it is day' will doubtless gain an
intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning
of the words that * the night cometh when no man can

THE ORIGIK OF MAN 61

work/ yet when at times I think, as think at times I
must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed
glory of that creed which once was mine, and the
lonely mystery of existence as now I find it, — at such
times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the
sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible."

Romanes, during his college days, came under the
influence of those who worshipped the reason and this
worship led him out into a starless night. Have we
not a right to demand something more than guesses,
surmises, and hypotheses before we exchange the " hal-
lowed glory " of the Christian creed for *' the lonely
mystery of existence" as Romanes found it? Shall
we at the behest of those who put the intellect above
the heart endorse an unproved doctrine of descent and
share responsibility for the wreckage of all that is
spiritual in the lives of our young people? I refuse
to have any part in such responsibility. For nearly
twenty years I have gone from college to college and
talked to students. Wherever I could do so I have
pointed out the demoralizing influence of Darwinism.
I have received thanks from many students who were
perplexed by the materialistic teachings of their in-
structors and I have been encouraged by the approval
of parents who were distressed by the visible effects of
these teachings on their children.

As many believers in Darwinism are led to reject
the Bible let me, by way of recapitulation, contrast that
doctrine with the Bible:

Darwinism deals with nothing but life; the Bible
deals with the entire universe — with its masses of

62 THE OEIGIN OF MAN

I

inanimate matter and with its myriads of living things,
all obedient to the will of the great Law Giver.

Darwin concerns himself with only that part of
man's existence which is spent on earth — while the
Bible's teachings cover all of life, both here and here-
after.

Darwin begins by assuming life upon the earth ; the
Bible reveals the source of life and chronicles its
creation.

Darwin devotes nearly all his time to man's body
and to the points at which the human frame approaches
in structure — though vastly different from — the brute ;
the Bible emphasizes man's godlike qualities and the
virtues which reflect the goodness of the Heavenly
Father.

Darwinism ends in self-destruction. As heretofore
shown, its progress is suspended, and even defeated,
by the very genius which it is supposed to develop ; the
Bible invites us to enter fields of inexhaustible oppor-
tunity wherein each achievement can be made a step-
ping-stone to greater achievements still.

Darwin's doctrine is so brutal that it shocks the
moral sense — the heart recoils from it and refuses to
apply the " hard reason " upon which it rests ; the Bible
points us to the path that grows brighter with the

i

\ years

Darwin's doctrine leads logically to war and to the
worship of Nietzsche's " Superman " ; the Bible tells
us of the Prince of Peace and heralds the coming of
the glad day when swords shall be beaten into plough-
shares and when nations shall learn war no more.

THE OEIGIN OF MAN 63

Darwin's teachings drag industry down to the brute
level and excite a savage struggle for selfish advan-
tage; the Bible presents the claims of an universal
brotherhood in which men will unite their efforts in
the spirit of friendship.

As hope deferred maketh the heart sick, so the
doctrine of Darwin benumbs altruistic effort by pro-
longing indefinitely the time needed for reforms; the
Bible assures us of the triumph of every righteous
cause, reveals to the eye of faith the invisible hosts
that fight on the side of Jehovah and proclaims the
swift fulfillment of God's decrees.

Darwinism puts God far away; the Bible brings
God near and establishes the prayer-line of com-
munication between the Heavenly Father and His chil-
dren.

Darwinism enthrones selfishness; the Bible crowns
love as the greatest force in the world.

Darwinism offers no reason for existence and pre-
sents no philosophy of life; the Bible explains why
man is here and gives us a code of morals that fits into
every human need.

The great need of the \vorld to-day is to get back
to God — back to a real belief In a living God — to a
belief in God as Creator, Preserver and loving
Heavenly Father. When one believes In a personal
God and considers himself a part of God's plan he
will be anxious to know God's will and to do it, seek-
ing direction through prayer and made obedient
through faith.

Man was made In the Father's image; he enters

64 THE ORIGIlSr OF MAK

upon the stage, the cHmax of Jehovah's plan. He is
superior to the beasts of the field, greater than any
other created thing — but a little lower than the angels.
God made him for a purpose, placed before him in-
finite possibilities and revealed to him responsibilities
commensurate with the possibilities. God beckons
man upward and the Bible points the way; man can
obey and travel toward perfection by the path that
Christ revealed, or man can disobey and fall to a level
lower, in some respects, than that of the brutes about
him. Looking heavenward man can find inspiration
in his lineage; looking about him he is impelled to
kindness by a sense of kinship w^hich binds him to
his brothers. Mighty problems demand his attention ;
a world's destiny is to be determined by him. What
time has he to waste in hunting for " missing links "
or in searching for resemblances between his forefa-
thers and the ape? In His Image — in this sign we
conquer.

We are not progeny of the brute; we have not been
forced upward by a blind pushing-power ; neither have
we tumbled upward by chance. It is a drawing-
power — ^not a pushing-power — that rules the world —
a power which finds its highest expression in Christ
who promised: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me."

OAN 78

^^^^ N. MANCHESTER,
INDIANA

r---^.'