The Indianapolis journal., 1885-07-20
EVOLUTION In RELIGION.
Congressman Owen Reviews Beecher,
and Defends Moses and Inspiration.
An Address Delivered at Charlottesville, in the
Center Church, in Response to Request
of q Large Number of Citizens.
lis journal.


CRAwFoRDsvMLE, July 19.-This evening
Elder w. D. Owen, Of Logansport, delivered his
address on Evolution in Religion" in the Center
Presbyterian Church, the Christian church be-
ing entirely too small for such a turnout as
greeted the speaker this evening This address
was delivered in accordance with request of
our citizens, and was listened to with intense
interest Elder Owen is a fluent speaker. and
has the ability of making his subjects very plain
to an audience. The following is the address IN
fuik
In answer to a request will talk on evolution
in religion as taught by Mr.. Beecher. L assure
you it is with no light concern announce dsa-
preement with religious position taken by
Henry Ward Beecher. l believe Mr. Beecher to
be honest He is the worlds pulpit orator. He
has been a factor in religious movements Tor
fifty years His active life spans through one
half our national existence, and his fame fills
both hemispheres. Whatever such man may
declare deserves from all men candid considera-
tion.
We are all agreed the world has nothing nobler
to offer man than life eternal at Gods right hand.
How such an heirship may be won here and
occupied hereafter is the single and consuming
purpose of religion. True, the Bible unfods the
order Of creation not because it has any neces-
sery connection with the saving Of the soul, but
that we may know our God is all and IN all.
For by Him were all things made and without
Him was not anything made that was
made" This non-vital prefix to the religious
system has been seized upon to impair the integ-
rity of the entire sacred text III the authentlcl-
ty of the creative statement is overthrown in
spiration receives shock from which it can
never recover. Ultimately it destroys the ne
cessity of the church, and the ordinances become
cheap the 'head over all things is dethroned.
and the forcefu thus saith the Lord" is stricken
down, and Of this splendid fabric will have
only bundle of principles without form and in
most instances void. The Bible will be crowded
with fantastic interpretations favored with sci
ence, paganism or passion. On the down grade,
with the engineer gone and the brakes off, the
passengers are likely to get into a row, and run
the train to ruin The necessity for a religion, a
law Of life, fixed and final, is most evident one
from which there can be no appeal, or if one be
taken its very folly will confOund the appellant.
For generations the world has found this abso-
lCtsm, this paradise of rest, in the revelation of
God Itself asserts it is able to make the conner
thereunto perfect, and thoroughly furnish him
unto every good work. To this school of scien-
lists and evoiutionlsts who are confounding
known facts and principles by their theories, phi
losophies and probabilities, it confidently says,
''much learning hath made you mad"
Let us examine some of the points OF the
Bible touched by the new Interpretation.
1t is roundly asserted that science has
cast aside the early books of Genesis.
What do they teach contrary to the established
truths of science! Mr.. Beecher says: There
can be no question that the disclosures of geol-
ogy respecting the six days of creation have
ended the popular apprehension in regard to the
account of creation in the early chapters of
Genesis" But the popular apprehension may
not have been correct comprehension Of the
books teaching The first chapters Of Genesis is
scientific history, and the popular mind is not
versed in that domain. The book ought not to
be treated from the point OF popular apprehen-
sion Permit it to tell its own story. Were the six
days, twenty-four hours each, or creative days,
covering vast periods of time9 They could not
have been twenty four each, because the inter
nal evidence of the chapter forbids it. l will
read the 14th, 18th and 10th verses of the first
chapter of Genesis: 'And God said. let there
be lights in the Permanent of the heaven to di-
vide the day from the night; and let them be for
signs and for seasons, and for days and years;
and let them be for lights in the armament of
the heaven to give light upon the earth; and it
was So And God made two great lights, the
greater light to rule the day. and the lesser light
to rule the night; He made the stars also" Here
we have the sun, and moon, and stars revealed
in the armament, and they give light upon the
earth and their light creates day and night.
Prior to this time there could have been
rise periods of twenty -four hours. But this is
the fourth day of creation for at the closing of
this paragraph it says: ''And the evening and
the morning were the fourth day" 1t is evident
from this history, that until after the fourth
creative day there was no such .S thing
as we now know them. Those days
swung on the axis of some other cause than the
diurnal movements of the earth fair consid
Grafton of the text would have taught popular
apprehension that, the did not shine
upon our earth during the greater part of the
creative age, we must find elsewhere the cause
that ruled its day and night, and there ascertain
the hours or cycles OF their duration.
In the third verse of this chapter read: "And
God said Let there be light, and there
light This throws mo into a perpiexity not
about the twenty four-h hour days, but at having
light before the luminaries were reported in the
heavens When Noltaire read this third verse,
and then the fourteenth, he gave a shout of
infidel derision that unsettled the faith of many.
"Why," he cried heres bunder III the first
chapter it has God make light on the first day,
and then creates the sun, and moon, and stars
four days afterwards Creates light twice, and
gets it in the first instance without a sum-"
After Voltaire had gone to his grave geology
shed light on his blunder AS this is geological
history, | will let that science speak on the
alton of light 1t says the universal darkness
was partially dispeed in the first stage of the
earths formation by the exhalation of phosphor
escent vapors, which surrounded the incandscent
mass with dim and unreal light Then there
was light on the earth during the first epoch of
creation, not given by sun. These swaddng
bands Of mist with changing density and quail
ity, grdled the globe until the fourth epoch of
creation, when the process of their consumption
was inaugurated. AS they cleared away, the
light or the sun broke in upon their vacant path;
for our sun and many of the solar systems are
ages old, the earth coming late in the generations
of the planets. Then day and night, although
in fitful way only did appear during this fourth
season. Moses says the sun was then made, but
he is on the earth stand point and speaks from
the appearance of things. 1t was the first time
it was visible from the earth. The beclouding
vaporous exhalatons continued in varying
amounts throughout the next era which brought
=. the development of animal life. Finally, when
the last sea of vapor had been taken up or dis
solved, and the sky was clear man appeared
upon the earth, in the sixth era of creation.
The sun and moon poured down their unob-
structed rays, flooding his globe with daylight
and darkness; then it was Deity touched his
finger to the pendulum of humanty's clock, and
time, with its perfected revolutions of day and
night, began. Evidently we have found the axis
on which Moses turned his days in Genesis, be-
fore time began; the evening and morning of
those days spanned each creative epoch, cycles
Of ages in duration.