The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-02
Mr.. BEECHER ON EVOLUTION.
The Plymouth Pastor Shows Distinc-
tions Between Scienceand Religion,
And Gives Definition of Two Records Of Gods
Creative Energy-The Commandments
Paragraph in the Book of Nature.
New York SneciaI


second sermon in his course on Evolution" at
Plymouth Church, this morning, before congre-
cation which, in spite of the threatening wealth
er, filled the conmodious building. Mr. Beechea
took his text from the third verse OF the first
chapter of Johns gospel: "All things were made
by Him, and without Him was not anything
made that was made"
Mr.. Beecher said: That the whole world and the
universe were the creation of God, is the testi-
mony of the whole Bible, both Jewish aud
Christian But how He made them whether by
the direct force of creative will, or Indirectly
through long series of gradual changes, the
Scriptures do not declare. The grand truth isf
that this world was not a chance, a creative fer
mentaton, self development, but that it was
the product of an intelligent being, and that the
divine will in the continuance of this world man
ifests itself under the form of what are called
natural laws, and that the operations-the nor
NAL and legitimate orerations-of normal laws
are the creations of God himself
There are two records of Gods creative energy
one the record of the unfolding of man aad the
race under the inspiration of Gods nature This
is a mere sketch Of the ancient period of man
there is almost nothing known. One of these
records or revelations, if you choose to call
them so, pertains to the physical globe, and re-
veals the divine thought through the unfolding
history of matter. So we have two revelations
Gods thought in the evolution of matter, and
Gods thought in the evolution of mind; and
these are the Old Testament and New not in the
usual sense of the terms, but in an appropriate
scientific use of these terms In that great book
of the world there is record Of the progress,
order and results of Gods thought in regard to
the globe as habitation for man, and though
not every stage, yet the chief stages of prepare
ton of this dwelling for man have been dis
covered and are now being deciphered and read.
The crude, primitive material of the world of mat
ter the igneous conditions of the aqueous stages
the dynamic and chemical periods, the gradual
formation of soil. the mountain building. the
dawn of life, vegetable and ANIMAL the stages
of their progress--are not all these written in
the revelation of Gods history of creations
When reflect upon the reign of the invisible
an the silent God with the vast and well-nigh
incomprehensible stretch of time, and of His
patient waiting and working through illimitable
ages, periods compared with which million
years, as marked by the clock but as Sec
onds when | reflect that the silent stones and
the buried strata contain record of Gods work.
ing; that the globe itself is volume of history
and the sublime history of God as an engineer
and builder as a. master. builder, cannot but
marVel at the lnulI1erence WIN Wnlcn gO0Q men
have regarded this stupendous revelation of ages
past, and especially at the assaults made by
Christian men on scientific men who are bring
ing to light the long hidden record of Gods
revelation in the material world.
With what eagerneSs has the world heard of
the discovery in Egypt of the tom5 that con-
tanned the buried kings of Pharaonic dynasties
But what are all these mute kings, wrapped for
a thousand years in the shroud of silence, CON-
pared with discovery of Gods methods and the
results of creation millions of centuries ago
printed in the rocks2 Were the two tables of
stone written by the finger of God memorial to
be revered and their contents to be written in
letters of gold in all mems churches while min
listers and men turn with indifference or denun-
ciation even with scorn sometimes. upon the lit
erature of the rocks written by the hand of God
all over the earthl Whatwere the Ten Command
ments but paragraph out of the book of the
divine revelation Of nature! Ages before Zion
itself was upheaved in the progress of divine
world building; ages before the human race was
enough advanced to have made the Ten Com
mandments possible, God was silently building
a world that was to contain within itself
its own history. Science is only the decipher-
ing of Gods thoughts as revealed in the
structure of this world: it is mere translation
of Gods revelation. Ito reject Gods revelation
of the hook is infdeity, what is it to reject
Gods revelation OF himself in the structure OF
the whole globel There is much infdelity In
the great history that science unfolds oday-
more than the infideity of the record OF the
structural thought of God in preparing dwell
ing for the human races that, nothingl Man
had as his cradle the poetical Eden represented
TO antiquity, but the globe had different Eden
One of fire, of commissions, cloud and storms,
of grinding ice, preparing SOIL The history of
man in the Bible is more important than the his
tory of the globe, to be sure; it was TIE end for
which the globe was itself created, as the house
is that which was created to serve the family.
But both are Gods revelations; both are to be
received with intelligent reverence, to be united
and harmonized; both are to be employed in the
throwing of light one upon the other; and, en-
abled by it, investigators who are deciphering
the higher hyerogiypics of God inscribed upon
this temple of the EARTH are to be honored and
encouraged.
AS it is now, very vaguely, the bigots, theolo-
gists pietists. jealous churchmen, and the whole
brood OF shallow and ignorant men whose exist
ence seems sarcasm upon creativeewisdom,
swarm about the adventurous surveyors who are
searching Gods handiwork and adding to the
realm of the knowledge of God the grandest
treasures; and when men pretending TO be min
listers of God, with all manner of grimace and
shallow ridicuie and veteran wit, and unuro-
ductive reason. enact the very feats OF the
monkey in their attempt to prove that that was
not the origin of the human family it seems to
me that there viii yet be All internal evidence
that it was the origin of the human family and
that the law is established. 1t is objected to
these assertions of the validity of Gods great
record in the matter that science is uncertain
and unripe; that men are continually changing
the lines of science; that it will not do to rest
upon the results of scientific investigation: it will
be time to consider this when it is ripened into
certainty, men say but not now
Well, as the case stands, how is the record Of
the book any more stable and ineligible than
the record Of the rock2 The whole Christian
world for two thousand years since the compile
ton of the canon, has been divided up like the
end of broom, into infinite splinters. quarrel
ing with each other what the book did say and
what it meant, and are these the men to turn and
say that scientific men are unsettled in their
opinion2
At the congress of Christian churches in Hart
ford. recently, the Rev. DR.. Hopkins, n promt
nent high church man, said: NO less than
nineteen different varieties of Christianity are
at present trying to convert the japanese. The
nineteen do not agree in their ministry as to
the word some including the apocrypha and
others discarling it altogether and many differ