heathenism.—Testimony of James Freeman Clarke, Sir J.William Dawson.

Must affect the spiritual state. — Effect on candidates for ministry. — Latent effect on faith. — On experimental religion. — Evolution as a state of heart. — A comfortable theory to the impenitent. — Prepares for "isms." — Weakens pulpit power. — Eliminates faith in the supernatural and eternal. — Education's place in modern giving. — Is the last form of unbelief? — The common people and the Gospel of the Cross.

PREFACE.

Evolution is claimed by its advocates to be the greatest intellectual discovery of the past century, and, by some, the greatest thought that ever entered the mind of man. In the words of its greatest philosopher, Herbert Spencer, "It spans the universe and solves the widest range of its problems, which reach outward through boundless space, and back through illimitable time, resolving the deepest problems of life, mind, society, history and civilization." It has woven into one great philosophy the history of the material universe, the entire organic creation, man and all his faculties, the whole course of human history and the origin and progress of all religion.

It also undertakes to account for the Bible, for what is popularly called higher criticism represents the biblical branch of Evolution. It has reconstructed the Bible and remanded its miraculous narratives to the realm of myth. It has formulated a theology in which the most sacred doctrines of evangelical belief are discarded. In its central theory of the origin of man, it vitally affects the doctrines of the nature of man, of sin and penalty, man's need and the work of Christ. It even touches the person of Christ, for many of its advocates say that He too comes within its scope. In its radical and most consistent form, it utterly discards belief in God. Most of the great teachers of Evolution, such as Ernst Haeckel of Jena, are and have been atheists.

It is true that many evolutionists are theistic. But it is not enough to be theistic. The devil is "theistic," so was Thomas Paine. Christianity is far more than theism. It is the grossest sophistry to teach that because a belief has some truth in it we must therefore tolerate it. All false doctrine is sugarcoated with truth. That we are not overstating the dangerous nature of the theory will appear from the following opinions of competent scholars and observers.

Prof. George Frederick Wright, the eminent geologist, says of Evolution: "It is the fad of the present, which is making such havoc and confusion in the thought of the age, leading so many into intellectual positions, whose conclusions they dare not face and cannot flank, and from which they cannot retreat except through the valley of humiliation." (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1900.)

Prof. George Howison sounds this alarm: "It is a portent so threatening to the highest concerns of man, that we ought to look before we leap and look more than once. Under the sheen of the evolutionary account of man, the world of real persons, the world of individual responsibility, disappears; with it disappears the personality of God." (Limits of Evolution, pp. 5, 6.)

There is a vital connection between Facts, Doctrines, Experiences, Conduct and Prospects. These successively flow from each other. Christianity rests on facts, from these we derive doctrines and from doctrines come experiences, which give rise to conduct and that ends in suitable prospects. Facts form the basis of Christianity. When, therefore, Evolution attacks the Facts of the Bible, it attempts to undermine the very basis of all Christianity. President Francis L. Patton has said: "You may put your philosophy in one pocket and your religion in another and think that, as they are separate, they will not interfere, but that will not work. You have to bring your theory of the universe and your theory of religion together. This is the work of this age."

While all do not go the length of the radical evolutionists, yet such is the natural working of the human mind, that this will be its logical conclusion. If this theory is accepted, we must look for widespread lapse from all Christian faith and, as conduct follows belief in all intelligent creatures, we shall see also great moral declension.

To the ordinary man, the matter appears in this light: If we cannot believe a man's statements we will not take his advice. If we cannot believe the Bible's narratives why should we believe its religion? If it is not trustworthy as to facts of this world, why depend upon it as to the other world? If it cannot teach correctly the nature of insects and animals, why should it be able to tell us the nature of God? The common man reasons rightly. The Bible must stand or fall by its reliability all along the line of truth of every kind.

Evolution is being taught, or taken for granted to-day in high schools, academies, colleges, universities, and seminaries. It meets the Sunday School scholar at the first chapter of Genesis. A busy city pastor says he has been asked about it every day in the week. It is a living question and must be met. In every free library are the works of Spencer, Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley and others, and these are read continually.

It does seem as if the other side of such a question ought to be given and considered, if there be another side, and there certainly is.

The theory of Evolution is being accepted to-day upon ex-parte evidence. The books on Evolution are numbered by hundreds, those giving the other side are few. Many do not even read for themselves but rely upon the weight of noted names, or the supposed "consensus of scholarship."

It is even asserted that none but scholars have the right to discuss the subject. Dr. Lyman Abbott says in his "Evidences of Christianity" that "those who are not scientists must be content to await the final judgment of those who are experts on this subject, and meanwhile accept tentatively their conclusions." Not to notice this demand that we rest on an unfinished theory, might we not ask permission to accept, "tentatively" at least, the Bible as it is, while awaiting the conclusions of scientists as to what we shall think or believe about it; especially in view of the fact that all that has been done so far by Christianity on earth has been effected by the conservative belief in the Bible.

But non-scientific people are able to comprehend Evolution. The scientist to-day is able to state conclusions in language the non-scientific can readily understand, and the evolutionist himself tells us we can understand his facts and arguments. So we who are not scientists may proceed to investigate a subject in which we have so much at stake. The questions involved are too important to be left to the scientist alone. The scientist is mainly a witness as to the facts of nature. It is the duty of the whole body of the intelligent Christian community, lay and clerical, to generalize and draw conclusions. These form, as they have in the past, the court of last resort in such discussions. The best generalizer will be, not the