Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1884-10-30
5t|istellaueous &eadiug.
EVOLUTION.
PROFESSOR DAVID SWING TALKS ABOUT
Il HOPELESS STUDY
Professor David Swing, pastor of Contra

PROFESSOR DAVID SWIfG TdLhS iiBOOI
Il HOPELESS STUDY
Professor David Swing, pastor of Central
Church, recently preached upon the subject
GA Hopeless Study" and from the text:
That they should seek the Lord if haply they
should feel after Him and find Him. Acts 1921
It has not been many years since it was
thought that the theory of natural evolution
was new and pure atheism. 1t was looked
upon with horror by both ministers and
theologians. The harm done the world by
Voltaire and the French RatiOnaliStS be-
came insignificant in comparison with this
coming theory OfneW men Ofscience. Only
few seasons have passed, and now we find
that eminent Presbyterian clergymen and
professors are espOusing and teaching all the
essential ideas of Darwin and Huxley. The
President of Princeton College and also
Southern teacher of note have affirmed the
probable truth of the ordinary doctrine of
evolution. Thus the monster of former
age becomes the beauty of succeeding day
This is not because of Pope's notion that
vice becomes charming when favored and
| long looked upon, but rather because it was
childish fancy that made monster out OF
the first appearance of the new idea. Fancy
often makes giants out of Windmills and
cavalry out of a flock of sheep.
It is probable that the doctrine Of evolu-
| tion, as held by Darwin at first, and now by
eminent Presbyterians, is false, and that
DARWIN, OF ENGLAND,
and McCosh, of our country, are meeting in
the valley of darkness rather than on any
mountain of light. But be the truth where
it may, one lesson of value results from this
meeting of evolutionists and Christians
that God and nature are beyond the reach of
any measurement by materialist or Chris
tian. When the materialist and devout
Christian meet in their mental jOurneyings,
that meeting teaches us that both are deal
ing with an mprehensible subject, and
have finally come to place where advance
| is impossible. The harmony of McCOsh and
Darwin is the harmony of ignorance more
than of discovery. They meet not in vlcto-
ry but in despair.
Let us make a morning lesson of the
thought that there is no such thing as a
solution Of the universe upon either its ma
terial or spiritual side; that all we can do is
to mark the passing fact and draw our con-
clusion from the constant phenomena. Not
that we must live life Of doubt, ready for
atheism or deis,n but the life of faith we
must live cannot be based upon any compre-
hension of the universe, but it must be
founded on the landscape that is visible in
the life of man.
Let us note in advance the error of those
times which subjected SO many to torture
and death for slight variations Of opinions.
ALL THOSE VARIATIONS
must have been harmless, because in our
day the disciples of evolution sit down at
the Christian communion along with those
who hold that God created each species out
of nothing, as suggested in Genesis. When
that professor in Presbyterian Theological
Seminary delivered recently his address in
favor of evolution, the trustees convened in
obedience to a general clamor, but after con-
ference concluded that the address was not
at war with Christianity. From such new
reasOnableness we must infer the crime OF
those ages which visited with death or I'M
prisonment, or exile, departures from church
notions not one-tenth as great as this one un-
der consideration. We are all glad that we
live in an age which can admittO one broth
erhood, and even into one denomination,
those who follow Darwin and those who fol-
low the old theory; but our gladness makes
US see the cruelty of that past which perse-
cuted men and women, and even children
for varying in opinion from some printed
formula of idea. How much happiness and
INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS
our world has lost by not having known the
harmless nature of variations within religious
thought, and how near to each other may
be two minds and hearts which cherish diff
ferent theories of creation and widely diff
fering theories of God. All the discords Of
the church have occurred among those who
were indeed friends. Bitter enemies in the
fifteenth century would have been loving
friends in the nineteenth; and yet are the
modern Emergencies greater than those
for which thousands died in past periods.
ID fha
rows of our ancestors to cloud the sky of us
all-their children; but rather we must en-
ioy to the full period which can see the
substance of things and distinguish it from
the ever changing drapery Of thought. AS
in it's political affairs and in arts and inven-
tions the human race has lost large part of
it's possible prosperity for ages and ages, so
in it's religious department it suffered a vast
multitude of great and needless sorrows,
and since no tears can help those dead gen.
erations, we must turn away and enjoy a
period which can see the same religious
faith under theories old and new.
Our chief thought to-day is that, as to the
universe and it's Author all is wholly un-
movable, except band Of passing
OBJECTS AND EVENTS;
and that in this band are seen universe
and a God. Away from this zone of pass
SooSA
Here we are all of us standing in the midst
of terms, no one of which we can define
time, space, life, eternity, intidelity and
God, and vet we are slow to admit that pro-
gress toward a definition is impossible.
PHILOSOPHERS and metaphysicians return
repeatedly to discourse at least upon these
TOPICS, but we are unable to detect any pro-
gress whatever along these lines ofthought.
We are perfectly and hopelessly unable to
think of a time when there was nothing and
of world where there was or shall be no
time. The terms "boundless," "tlmeless,'"
"without ORIGIN" are only the unintelllgI-
BILE sighs or groans we utter when our minds
fail. In the great hidden surroundings Of
man Pythagoras and his school taught that
the soul of man had been long in existence,
going from one animal to another, and that
when mans body dies his soul journeys to
some higher organization. 1t was difficult
for this theory to be combated because the
outside realm was so fully unknown that it
was open to all theories alike. Eternity
was like
A NEW CONTINENT.
Or like the great plains Of our West, open
once to the first actual settler. And even
now when one of the recent novelists makes
his character recognize city and street
and house as having been once before occu-
pied by former body Of himself the pub
lie reads the book as though it might be
true. Edward Beecher publishes volume
to prove that we all once lived former
life, and this is our second period of proba-
ton. Thus all this territory of thought lies
open to any pioneer of daring nature.
Darwinsm wins more favor because it
takes so far away from us the first human
being. The idea that full-sized man and
woman were made out Of clay 6,0QO years
400 makes the fact of man coma uuOn us