Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-06-03

THE PLYMOUTH PASTOR SAYS SCIENCE AND r
LIGIoN ARE NOT CONFLICTING.

THE PLYMOUTH PASTOR SAYS SCIENCE AND RE-
LIGION ARE NOT CONFLICTING.
A special dispatch to the Philadelphia Times
| from New York. May 81, says: Plymouth church
| held a large congregation today, despite the
lowering clouds and threatening rain, when
Henry Ward Beecher began his second sermon
in his Evolution series.' with the text from
the Sd verse of the LIST chapter of the Gospel OF
st. John: "All things were made by Him and
without Him was not anything made that
| was made" The preacher said that it was the
testimony of the Bible, both Jewish and Chris
tian, that the whole world and the entire uni
verse are the creation of God How he IN ade
them, whether by the direct force of creative will
or by gradual changes. is by no means so well
agreed upon. The world is not chance, not a
creative fermentation, not the result of Selfde-
velopment 1t IS the product OF an intelligent
being and of a divine will. There are two re-
cords of creative energy. One shows how man
was unfoded by the inspiration of Gods ma
ture. There Is another record in the physical
globe Of the divine thought in the unfolding his
tory of matter. One is Gods thought In the
evolution of material forces, the other Gods
thought in the evolution of the mind. 1t is the
Old Testament and the New in scientific sense
the world in fitting it for the habitation OF man.
Ali written down in God history of creation,
In the silent stones of the buried strata. 1t is
the record of God, the Master Builder.
Scientific men are bringing to light this his,
tory printed millions of centuries ago on the
rocks No one should turn in scorn from the
literature of the rocks written in the hand of
God all over the earth. The Ten Command
ments written on stone are only paragraph in
the books of nature. Science is the trans alton
or Gods revelation. There is as much more
iRfdelity in regard to the history science has
umOlded as infidelity in regard to the books.
Both revelations are of God. They are both to
be intelligently understood. united and harmo-
nized The men who decipher the hieroglypkics
of God ought to be honOred. Bigoted theolo-
gists, ignorant pietists and jealous churchmen
rail- at all adventurous surveyors of God s handi-
work. 1t is urged THAI science is unrpe: that it
n N hat fhara yx,il1 no fttro
enough to consider it when it becomes a GER
tainty. Howis it with the books: Is the record
any more stable than the record of the rocks?
Iheoiogy seems like broom with its infinite
splinters.
some men say they do not want to hear any
thing about evolution. 1t is revolutionary; they
don't want to hear what will unsettle their
faith. Such faith had better be unsettled if the
truth Is going to harm it. Some call evolution
pseudo science, and laugh to scorn the idea that
men descended from the monkey The descent
of man from the anthrOpOid apes Is only
that he saw no present expectation of its being
proven. 1t stands as hypothesis preserved by
upon many problems in history and in life
gained in no other way. He inclined not to the
belief, but to the supposition that man is an
analogy with the rest of Gods works. When
and by what methods man left behind his fell
lows and stood on the spiritual ground that sep
arates him from the brutes is unknown It
does not change the destiny and moral grandeur
of man to hold the evolution of the hr/nan from
the inferior race. This probable theory throws
need light for their solution. He held the theory
in suspense and waited meanwhile for light
Evolution does teach that the world was not
created in six days. The whole earth was an
egg, germ, seed, and has gradually unfolded.
From the etherft gained sOlidity: then came
the condition of the sun; it condensed and con-
geaied its vapors, and chemical changes and
grinding ice made soil fit for vegetation Then
plants developed to nearly their present con-
dition and the first animal was an aquatic
lnVertebrate; then came fishes and amphibians
and finally the earlist mammals and birds, and
last OF all man, at the end of the tertiary or the
beginning OF the sequent period.
Evolution Is the method of creation taught by
the scientific world: without it all science would
fall back into unrelated atoms. 1t is held by
such Christian men as Prof Dana; Lecont, Pres
byterian elder; McCosh, Presby terian of the
vart, Roman Catholic; Wallace, a Christian
Spiritualist, and by the bishop of London 1t
will oblige theology to be reconstructed but it
will take away ground of true religion, 1t
will strip Sauis armor off of David aud send
him forth better prepared to meet the giant
The change of theology will emacipate religion
for righteousness. 1t will leave all the forces of
religion to rouse and inspire faith, brighter and
keener than before. The sword of the spirit Will
no longer be sheathed in false philosophy. 1t
will obiterate the distinctions of natural and
revealed religion. for both are of God. 1t is our
duty to hail the rising light; we must hail the
signs of the times and rebuke those scoists of
the pulpit who make faces at evolution and
reason from prejudice to ignorance Modern
ignorance has inserted much into the Bible that
does not belong there.
tain top has been reached and the promised
land is in view. Great as has been the past the
future will be greater. These last years of my
life dedicate to God, to the development of
Christ on a grander scale. l believe in God: |
believe in Christ the representative of
Divinity; / believe in the essential truths of
morality and spirituality; | am not an infidel,
an agnostic nor an atheist; L am lover of
Christ as a representative of infinite love-"