The Indianapolis journal., 1885-07-20

number of words, give as accurate and graphic
an account of the order of creation, as we lind IN
the first chapter of Genesis
Let us examine this account as Moses unto!ds
it. and learn wherein it is discredited by geology:
Moses begins by recognizing the presence or
matter Geology assumes its original existence
Second, Moses says the earth was without form,
and void chaotic so says geology. Third Moses
says the first motions of development were
in darkness: so says geology. Fourth Moses
says light then appeared; SO says geology. Fifth,
Moses saws then came the upheaval of the land
from the water; so says geology Sixth Moses
SAYS vegetation now started; so says geology
Seventh, Moses says the great lights now ap-
peared we have seen how geology sustains this
Eighth, Moses says animal life began IN the
waters; says geology. Ninth, Moses says
animals followed fishes; so says geology Tenth,
Moses says then came man last of all; so says
geology.
This is what Moses himself wrote He has
described each upward step of the growing
world, and geology in case disagrees with
him. This man was forty years a indian shep-
herd, and forty years in the wilderness. How
does he chance to know so much of scencel He
wrote a thousand years before science was born.
and twelve hundred years before any man had
ever ventured on the ''order of creation" My
answer is found in the record itself 'Holy
men of old spake as God gave them utterance"
The Bible starts each creative epoch by di-
vine force Evolution cannot start one at all.
1t knows nothing of the origin of matter. or
what matter is; its province is to deal with
forms after they have started into the struggle
for life. Infnity procreates new form, and
evolution guards its development, having thrown
around it but one limitation. leach shall bring
forth after it's kind" The development of each
existence is in harmony with its primordial kind.
The species is improved, but never changed; by
no method known can new kind be produced
and become reproductive. Whenever all of a
kind have gone down in some cataclvsm Of dis
aster, their place has remained vacant-we can
not create them again. The doctrine of evolu-
tion is true within the determnate lines of each
species. In the ages that followed chaos, and
the birth of each species, the evoutionist has
field for investigation. Here he can watch the
developing forms Of vegetable and animal life;
he can view them as they strike friendly
hands with their environments and move up to
statlier forms of existence, or weak and unfit to
battle with their surroundings, deteriorate, go
down and die. Here is magnificent scope to
study design in nature. God did not give the
ostrich his plumes as they are now, nor the flower
its color, the oak its grandeur; these have
passed through many variations and adjustments,
produced by ten thousand causes. The oak has
grown more sinewy, the cactus hourishes in the
desert and flowers bloom on beds of snow these
have been the fittest to live the others have per-
ished. The infinite designer has filled the earth
with frutfulness, and by the law of adaptation
the highest usefulness is being conserved. The
student OF development may well pause before
the presence of this stupendous march of life.
His system will have a full occupation here.
With the universe moving in unfolding and
upward progress through the dateless days, and
even yet her husbandry is developing in struct-
ure and adaptation, we discover an opportunity
for the exercise Of evolution, so vast and sublime
that, at the present rate of progress of this
science. ages will be required to make known all
it's truths.
The theory of evolution has struck its imita-
tions so often it ought to accept them as sugges-
tions of failure. 1t receives such suggestions
at the start for Mr.. Darwin, its great apostle,
confesses that matter could not start itself, but
some unknowable power fillelit with the energy
of motion. We all agree with Mr.. Beecher when
Count Gablet D'Alviella, who says of his phi
losophy: "Whether true false, complete or
incomplete, it unQuestionably represents the
vastest and grandest synthesis that human
Spencer, in his First Principles says there is
IAN infinite and eternal energy from which all
things proceed" Of course he is agnostically
silent on its personality, and conceives it to be
unknowabe. Now we have Moses, Darwin,
Spencer and Beecher all treating upon crea-
ton. But think the evolutionist the agnostic,
and the preacher may all learn from him who
wrote first upon this subject. In the second
verse of the first chapter of Genesis, he says:
''The earth was without form and void, and
darkness upon the face of the Deep That
is the condition in which Darwin and Spencer
| find matter-bipd and insensate-then they in
| troduce the unknowable agency, and have crea-
| tion begin. But Moses makes known that
| agency, for he adds:s And the spirit of God
| moved-or brooded-upon the face of the waters"
| (Often rendered upon the face of the mighty
| deep Here is infinite and eternal energy at the
moment and place needed The Spirit every
where in the Bible is represented as Gods active
agent. He incubated the mighty mass, and up
through the sullen depths, started force and its
| twin agent design; within the high ways of space
moved the splendid drama Of forming worlds.
| They were born. And, speaking in broad
sense, these heavenly bodies, with their gorgeous
tenantry, all sweeping obediently along their or
dained paths, are the Spirits brood
When evolution is compelled to go outside Of
| known nature for an infinite and eternal energy
| to start the worlds into organization it is not
seeming consistency to deny such presence when
| special and particular organizations are to be
brought into life.
Having cast the Bible aside as an accumula-
tion of legends, respected chiefly because of
their age Mr.. Beecher is prepared to declare the
origin of man uncertain and debatable; believing
that he was on the earth thousands of years,
developing morals, governments and social
forms before we have any account of him; that
1--WE need not affirm his ascent from the lower
animals, it is sufficient that he started from the
lowest savagery.p But his sermons are palpably
based on the universal operation of evolution.
In the DR.. Kennedy letter he boldly asserts it.
Il believe" he says, that man evolved from
the animal race below him" The man that be-
| ieves this jumps chasms unknown to Bible
faith, In its presence the well-famed dogmatism
| of theologians ceases to be a marvel. What is
| the evidence for the antiquity of man2
There are two possible witnesses for the
affirmative L. Ancient relics g Evolution. l
have information of others. Certain discov-
cries made in Denmark by party of Scandina-
which proposes to lift humanity out of savagery
to the historic period, through three
successive ages-the Stone Age the Bronze Age,
and the Iron Age-each age being marked by the
| material used for arms, tools and other imple-
ments. If man has. roamed the earth during a
measureless antiquity, it is fair to conclude the
relics of his implements are abundant and that
those of the stone will be found in the lowest
tier of deposits, the bronze above them, and the
| iron last But the expected relics have not been
found, and the researches of Dr. Schliemann on
the site of ancient Troy have even spoiled pre-
historic man. In digging on this historical Site,
after proceeding to depth of SIX feet, and dis
AZ oo:., L: :4.al.