The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1878-03-02
wrongly construed his meaning.

est liberty Of thought and for the
broadcast christian charity.
In all this there is perhaps nothing
thata liberal orthodoxy might not ac
cept. But many of us have been
taught from our infancy to believe the
simple story of the Fall of our First
Parents as recorded in the book of
Genesis as implicitly as any other BIZ
bic Truth, and, in our maturer years,
we receive it upon the same authority
that we do the doctrine of the Trinity,
Of the Incarnation or any other car
dinal tenet of our faith.
That evil does exist and has existed
is verified by history and by the ex-
perience of mankind.
While the primary origin of evil
does not concern us,its origin as relat-
ing to our race and it's occurrence in
the garden of Eden, we submit, is
quite as explicable as any Other his
torical fact or moral phenomenon.
From analogy we can see, quite as
clearly, why the disobedience to law
upon the part of our first parents
should entail moral depravity upon
their posterity, as we can see why the
violation of moral and physical law,
at the present day, induces physical
disease in the person Of the guilty
which he transmits to his offspring.
The same evil in essence, whether in the
form of a serpent, as our translators have
it, or other corporal manifestation which
appeared in Eden, appears many times and
in proteaa forms in every ones experience,
and the wrong ensues, so surely as trans
erosion results, so surely does the penalty
| follow.
When appearing in the form which sol>
ONION so graphically describes in the sev>
enth chapter of Prove r5s, the iniquity of the
victim is in many instances truly visited up
on his children unto the third and fourth
generation in their physical corruption.
If man was created to "glorify God and
enjoy him forever" the object could only
be attained in its completeness by consti-
tuting him free moral agent. Hence
his ability to elect for himself course Of
vice or one of virtue. In this view there
is nothing 80 wonderfully inexplicable in
the administration of Divine law and in the
execution of Divine justice more than
there is in that of human law and its just
| demands.
Again, the views of Deity as conceived
and presented by scientists alluded to are
not such as TO satisfy the longings OF the hu-
man heart, and are not such as christian
audience is disposed to accept these
reasoners view Divinity from an intellect,
ual and physical standpoint, only refusing
to look through the media which God has
chosen, mainly, to reveal himself to-wit:
through mans moral nature and the Word
of Inspiration. Hence their vague and
uncertain notions respecting that Being.
The God of Tyndall, viewed through the
mists of scepticism, is pantheistic press
ence pervading matter, regulating and CO.
ordinating its movements to the attainment
of definite ends.
The believers God is God who hears
prayer and answers the petitions of his
heart, regenerating and purifying his ma
turc thus Qualifying him for the duties of
the life that is and for the enjoyment ofthe
life ofthe hereafter.
The God of Darwin is vague indefnable
something inherent in protoplasm or ger
minai matter which vitaiizes and leads it
through series of genetic processes in its
successive stages of development until the
highest organisms are evolved.
The christians God is the Being whom he
apprehends by faith as his Creator Redeen>
er and Benefactor-
The God of Herbert Spencer is the same
UNKNOWN" and "Unknowable'
Being to whom the Athenian philosophers
| erected the altar on Mars Hill.
| st. Paul's God is the God whom he
preached to those wise men at the Are>
opagus as the God "in whom we live and
move and have our being" who had re-
vealed himself by the prophets and by
his son, Jesus Christ Repentance and
faith toword this Being, as Paul taught
before the assembled wisdom of Athens,
was just as necessary to their salvation,
as to the salvation of the humblest vas
sal.
True science proceeding as it does from
Gods Omniscience and true Religin from
his Infinite Love, can not in the nature
of things possibly disagree. But the res
ligous world is not disposed to allow its
Theology to.be disturbed by every phase
science as presented by either its modern
or ancient expounders. LAYMAS.
Morgantown, Feb. &c, 1878