Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-06-01
"EvOLUTION AND RELIGION"
Henry Ward Beecher Gives the Second
of His Ten Sermons.
New YORK. Nav 81.

New YORK, May 81.
The second of Henry Ward Beecher's pro-
jected ten sermons upon "Evolution ald re-
ligion," was delivered to a large audience in
Ply mouth church this forenoon The sermon
was read from manuscript. He said in part
THAT the world and the entire universe are
the creation of God is the testimony of the
Bible, with the Jewish and Christian, but
how he made them, whether by the direct
force of the creative will or by gradual
changes, is BY no means so well agreed upon.
But the world is net chance, not creative
fermentation, not self development.
1t is the product Of an intelligent being and
of divine will. We have two records of
creative energy. One shows how man was
unfolded by the inspiration of Gods nature,
and there is another record or revelation of
the PHYSICAL state, that of the Divine
thought in unfolding the history of the mat
ter. One is Gods thought in the evolution
of natural forces and another in the evolution
of the mind.
1t 10 the old testament and new in scien-
tific sense, and no one should turn in scorn
from the literature of the rocks, written in
the hand of God all over the world. The
ten commandments written on q stone are
only a paragraph in the book of nature.
Science is the translation of Gods revelation.
1here is as much more infidelity in re-
gard to the history that science has
unfolded as in regard to the book
Both revelations are of God. They are to be
intelligently understood, united and harmon
ized. Men who decipher the hieroglyphics
of God ought to be honored and encouraged,
but bigoted theologists, ignorant priests and
Jealous churchmen rail at these adventurous
surveyors Of Gods handiwork. When men
pretend to be inspired of God, with griDs and
shallow ridicule, with veteran jests and un-
productive reasoning, enacts feats of the
monkey in trying to prove that man did not
originate with that animal. We seem likely
to have interval evidence that such was the
case. Laughter. 1t is urged that science
is unripe, and will not do to rest upon; that
there will be time to consider it when it be-
comes a certainty. Well, how is it with the
Book9 Is its record any more stable than
the record of the rocks? Theology seems
like broom with infinite splinters. If the
ologians attempt to pour ridicule on legiti.
mate doctrines, if scientific investigation is
less trustworthy than revelation, l say no
ground can be less tenable. Some call eyo-
luton pseudo-science, and laugh at the idea
that man descended or ascended from q mon
key. The descent Of man from anthropoid
apes is only hypothesis not yet proven.
see no present expectation of its being prov.
en-. 1t stands as hypothesis pressed
by multitude of probabilities
1t throws light upon many problems in his.
tory and life, gained in no other way. in
cline not to be belief, bat the supposltion,
that man is in analogy to the rest of God's
work. At what time and by what method,
he left behind his fellows and stood on spir
itual ground that separates him from brutel
is unknown. But it does not change thu
destiny and moral grandeur of man to hole
the evolution of the human from An inferior
race. Evolution is method of creation, &C
cepsed by the scientific world and few ven
ture to doubt it. Ninety-nine per cent Of til,
scientific men use this theory and do NO
| doubt irs validity.