The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-16
Mr.. BEECHER ON EVOLUTION.
Man Declared To Be Animal at the
Bottom, but Spiritual at the Top.
The Whole Of Creation Has Been ingTurm0il
and Trouble--Man Was Not Born Per-
feet, but Has Steadily Advanced.
New York Special.

Before beginning his sermon this morning Mr..
Beecher made an earnest appeal to business men
In favor of the Saturday half holiday for clerks
and employees, a movement now being generally
Joined in by employers Of labor In New York.
Mr.. Beecher urged it on moral grounds, believ-
ing that it would have widely beneficial results.
He stated that TOO firms have agreed to close
their stores and other establishments at noon
Saturdays during the summer.
Mr.. Beecher preached the fourth OF the series
on evolution, taking as his text the passage com
prised in the nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-first
and twenty second verses of the eighth chapter
Of Romans:
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiting
for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity; not
willingly: but by reason Of Him who hath subjected the
Same in hope.
Because the creature also shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty Of
the children OF God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and
travalleth in pain together until now.
Dir. Beecher said: / believe that it is out of
the power of any man to give a connected and
perfect Interpretation of these two immortal
chapters, the seventh and eighth of Romans,
except upon the substantial theory of evolution.
And when the light of this more recent discov-
~ s"S Y VI wv AA "a tAV OOb'A "a
the terraqueous globe and of animal life and of
human life; when that shall have been explored
and perfectly understood / think both these chap
tiers will come out into a prominence that they
have never had, though they have attracted the
undivided attention of all Christian schools. If
we consider man as a joint creature, a subordi-
nate animal, and a superinduced spiritual being;
an animal at the bottom, a spiritual being at the
top, and the two struggling together for SUI
premacy, the seventh chapter OF Romans will be
very thoroughly considered as commentary in
the facts and science of history.
And if you enter into the eighth chapter with
the understanding that men have advanced into
a period in which the shining-out Of the soul of
God upon their souls has given them a victory
over the animal nature that is in them, you will
begin to sound the depth of this wonderful
chapter-the eighth-and you will see flashes Of
philosophy, strange to any Hebrew mind, strange
in Paul. yet manifest here; flashes back to give
some sort of an account of why the world has
been as it has been. And in that passage which
l have selected for the gate through which to
pass on to my subject today we have this same
declaration, that the whole of creation has been
in a turmoil and in a trouble; that it was not
altogether mans fault; that he was born to
vanity that Is, to changeableness to
JIM CndnS0 WulCu CdII1cS AliA lIOui coO-
ton to section, on from stage to stage;
that he was bora ia that way, as it
were, jointed ia time. aud each step onward and
upward, not made perfect, the declaration that
it was not his choice that made so subject to
vanity. but that it was a part of Gods plan.
The creature was made subject to diversity,
change, vanity, as it is called here, not willingly,
not of his own will, but by reason of Him who
hath subjected the same In hope by reason OF
God, who, with long foresight, saw what was to
t~ranspire. The cause, the creature-that is,
1 mantle human creature, shall be delivered
from the bondage of corruption. Born an ami
NAL, he shall be delivered from animalism into
the glorious liberty of the children Of God. He
begins at the bottom of the scale; he shall
terminate at the top. He begins environed by
matter and largely subject to its inevitable, with
instincts that drag him downward as well ten
denotes that ~prophesy an upward career; he shall
pass through all these transitions, aud in the end
the human race shall be evolved into q glorious
liberty. The beginnings are a struggle and a
bondage; the issue Ii a sweeping and final VIC
tory.
THE PROBLEM NOT YET SOLVED.
It ought not 10 be supposed that because the
divine method of creation has been discovered
substantially, because in the thought Of the
scientific world it has passed the period of doubt
and controversy, and has become the working
theory of the whole scientific world-it ought
not to be thought, therefore, that all difficulties
belonging to it have been solved. It ought not
to be thought that all applications of it to nature,
to society, to religious questions are also solved
and settled. There is yet much terra incognita.
There are many spheres Of uncertainty. The
world is almost of infinite contents, and we know
but comparatively a portion of them. The art
of discovery has been so developed that new
material is coming up every day for considera-
ton, and it's relations to old truths must be
modified. The theory of evolution may be said
to be in the condition of an incomplete railway.
The line has been determined upou and explored,
part of the road completed and in use, but there
are many a gap and lone tracts unfit as yet for
but its career is not doubtful. In its
rude and yet unstable condition it is the prophet
of its own perfect state.
For a long time speculative theology ruled
mems beliefs. Conduct and character are the
chief ends of God in the creation of man. They
were supposed to be the product of right system
attic beliefs. 1t is not to be denied that right
beliefs have much to do with conduct and char
acter, but it is false that conduct and character
can always be more easily derived from system
attic theological beliefs. The system grew I'D
which has been filled with confusion and has had
the art of confusing mankind; and it has come to
pass that theology stands in about this state: That
those who understand it quarrel necessarily
among themselves, and those that don't want to
quarrel don't understand it. Laughter Sys-
tematic theology included, in a general way, TO
De sure, a sound morality, an imperfect mental
philosophy, and An analysis of Gods nature and
government, in which good and evil, truth and
fiction, were blended as in Daniels vision. For
l think this vision is an admirable picture of the
present condition Of theology. This images
head was OF fine gold, his breast and his arms of
silver. his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs
Of iron, his feet part iron and part of clay. So
stands theology to-day.
In the popular mind this system of organized
belief is COMPOUNDED with religion. It is not the
course Of religion. 1t is in juxtaposition; it is
mixed up with it and it is COMPOUNDED with
Christianity. Men say. because certain elements
of theology have been exploded: 'fWhere's your
Christianity So much of it has gone already.
and the rest will follow" The greatest part OF
this theological matter was neither taught nor
even alluded to by Jesus the Christ, and yet mep-
are eager, many Of them, to say that when the
ology is disrupted and to be recorposed Chris
tianity is also disrupted and to 70 reconstructed.