The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1880-01-17

} period would De mucn ike u war III WIN
! the bow and cross.bow and sling shoul
resume their places as weapons, and
! leather shield should appear as q suticier
barricade. "The times change and !
thee we are changed"
This recall OF the past days may in tn
outset teach us this, that the mere fact 9
nervousness or alarm does not establisl
the fact that. the danger Is great or real
for the best good has always been full Q
doubt rs well rs full OF courage. Nothini
is secure In this world. Our happiness
our prosperity, our fortunes, our life, ar
held trelnblingly, and this shadow OF ap
prehension falls day by day upon the fl
tdre OF each ones religion.
When / was young there was q littl
book showing that there was one in th'
world one boy that was fearless. He hat
never been able to experience any emo
ton OF fear or imagine how fear coult
come or might seem, but outside Of tina
little book such q person has never beer
found, for man, Y Q when called brave
suffers regular returns OF this tremblingo
the heart. Few can move along In q nigh
train or in a steamship without feeling q
times that perhaps this will be our las
journey on this planet. Man when edu
Gated Is q brave animal, but it Is with
courage that has its modiications; and hi
riches, and name, and peace, and life ar,
held ~nervously with the feeling that they
may not last. Indeed, God only Is at peace
for nothingc can disturb his morrow. 0veI
him alone can be uttered the holy words
1.-THE same yesterday, to-day and forever
Man would love much TO look upon any
OF his dear possessions, his fame, or for
tune, or iireside, the sacred group around
1t, and say these are secure,-no Ill car
come. Thus all the forms OF faith resi-
uneasily upon their thrones, and II wise
States fear the morrow, and monarchy
and republic alike fear the communist, or
the traitor, or the revolutionist, and II
each heart often sinks in despair OF itS
own peace, so Christianity, however well
sustained by argument from Its ministers,
will always extract from any present q
bitter cup OF solicitude. One cannot there
fore infer from the mere fact OF alarm that
Q calamity is at hand.
To return TO our direct theme: After
this % or 80 years Of active warfare against
some OF the old strongholds OF religion,
the naturallsIs have accomplished some
things. They have compelled an almost
universal admission that the earth wa not
made de novo 5000 years ago. There may
be here q Christian, and perhaps here and
there even a Christian minister, who main
tains that God made the heavens and the
earth Just a little while before the pyra-
mids were built, but the idea may be
called abandoned. Just as Herculaneum
and Pompeii were abandoned, although
some few shepherds and beggars built
huts over the buried towns. The natu.
ralists have destroyed these Christian
dogmas which assigned a date to creation.
The literalness OF the Old Testament may
be viewed as overthrown.
Itseems to me that those studies Of evo-
luton which have engaged so many dis.
tinguished minds for many years have not
only changed the time OF creation but the
manner Of IL, and. while they have not
come anywhere near teaching as that man
came from q low form ofsimple existence,
from protoplasm, they have compelled us
TO confess that our immensely varied
world has sprung from a few germs OF the
divine planting, and that ourinfinite vari-
ETY. began in far offsimplicity. But science
has not yet measured this simplicity, and
has failed most completely to show that
man as We o see him was not Just
about such q creature always, and. did not
pass through any brute forms and stages.
or course we know not what new wit
nesses the friends OF evolution may find
in the future, but, as 1t seems 10 my
own mind, these students OF trans
muting species have wholly failed to
show that man was not in the outset OF
his career the exact creature OF to-day. II
is admitted that, should scientific study
show that man is a result OF other forms OF
physical organism, such a showing would
not destroy religious belief. Indeed, there
are several clergymen not occupying m
portant pulpits who accept of the theory
that mans career began in the sponge Of
the jelly-ish; but, aside from the question
oil results, itseems that no assertion OF
science has in the past five years failed
more perfectly than the idea that man did
not begin existence as a Science has
simply shownthe disposition Of nature to
evolve many colors from one-many forms
of roses from one rose; many colors of
pigeon, or rabbit, ordog, from one gentle
tint-but science has made no approach
toward showing US that an oyster can
become a bird or an infusoria
Is advancing toward ssan elephant. 1t
finds in creation more OF development
than the church once saw, but II cannot
tell us how many fountains there we're,
and who opened them for that river OF
life which rational and irrational flows
down through our globe. The scientists
have failed to find any origin Of life except
by means OF a Creator, and have failed to
find any origin OF man except an origin
much like the one delineated in Genesis.
Analogy they have found between high
and low animals; they have discovered
that man is an enlarged ape or oyster, but
analogy will not create anything or make
anything. st. Paul's resembles st. Peters,
but that resemblance did not build either
cathedral. So man resembles the ape, but
this similitude will not explain the pres
ence here OF either ape or q
= Aside from bringing 10 afirmations
and hypothesis, science has brought TO
bear upon religionan influence not Of new
facts, but OF new form OF thought. After
the modern mind began to study facts, be.
gan to report facts from the earth, aud
fields, and the sea, and the heavens, by
degrees there sprang Ut q new method OF
thought, q ~positiyeness OF style, and 1t
soon reached the whole public; and the
theologian and the thinker, in law or
politics, and in art, said: Let us all quit
fancy and have facts. Not science, but
this new form Of thought, came 10 Ques.
ton the stories OF the Bible, and to ques.
ton the old ideas about heaven and hell,
and the ideas Of the deity. Christianity
had been loaded down with the creations
OF the Imagination. 1t had been a collec-
ton OF curiosities OF form, and place,
and event. Dante and Milton, although
poets, were not much more dreamy
than was the church. The air was full Of
angels or imps. The earth was the center
of the universe. Houses were haunted,
The devil was a roaring Honor a cloyen,
footed beast. God was pictured and placed
in books. In the Roman church, and aftel
the division OF the Protestant church, al
thought, and all learning from that Of the
child In 1.-THE nursery TO the Judge on the
H. liz -. Al. L-L n.a.r