The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1886-01-08
credit st the sacred books should

credit OF the sacred books should
ensue because, to describe the order
and successive stages of the divine
working, these have been distributed
into days" What was the thing re-
CURED in order to make this great
procession OF acts ineligible and inn
pressivep Surely it was to distribute
the parts each into some integral
division OF time, having the character
OF something complete in itself, of q
revolution, or outset and return.
There are but three such divisions
famitiarly known to man. OF these
the day was the most familiar to
human perceptions; and probably on
this account its iigurativo use is ad-
mitted TO be found in prophetic texts,
as, indeed, it largely pervades ancient
and modern speech. Given the object
in view. which, indeed, can hardly be
questioned, does it not appear that
the ''day." definitely separated
than either month or year from what
precedes and what follows, was APP.
propriately chosen for the purpose of
conveying tho idea of development by
graduation in the process which the
book sets forth?
l own my surprise not only at the
fact, but at the in which in
this day writer's whose name Is legion,
u~nimpeached in character and abound
ing in talent. not only put away from
them-cast into shadow or into the
very gull of negation itseif-tho con
ception of a deity, an acting aud o
ruling deity. On this belief, which
has satisfied the doubts, and wiped
away the tears, and found guidance
for the footsteps of SO many u weary
w%anderer on earth, which among the
best and greatest of our race has been
so cherished by those who had it, and
so longed and sought for by those who
had it not, we might suppose that, if
ut length we had discovered that it
was in the light of truth %untenable,
that the accumulated testimony. of
man was worthless, and that his wis.
dom was but folly, yet at least the de-
%cencies of mourning would be vouch-
safed to this irreparable loss. Instead
of this it is with a joy and exultation
that might almost recall the frantic
org.es of tho commune that this ut
least at first sight terrific aud over
whelming calamity is accepted and re.
corded as a gsln. One recent and, in
many ways, respected writer-a wom-
an long wont to unship creed rs sailors
discharge excess OF cargo in a storm,
and passing at length into formal atlie-
ism--rejoices to find herself on the
open. free and breezy ommon of hui
manly Another, also u omar
and dealing only with the workings
and manifestations OF God. finds in
the theory of u physical evolution as
recently developed by Mr.. Darwin,
and received with extensive favor,
both an emancipation from error and
q novelty in kind. She reioices to
think that now Mt last Darwin .'shows
life rs a harmonious Whole, and makes
tho future stride possible by the past
advance Evolution, that is, physi-
cal evolution, which alone is in view,
may be true (like the solar theory,
may be delightful. and wondering, in
its right place; but are we really to
understand that varieties Of animals
brought about through domestication,
the wasting of organs flor instance,
the tails OF men) by disuse, that nat
ural selection and the survival of the
f%ittcst, all in the physical order, ex-
hlbit to us the great OF ere
alton, the sum and center Of
life, SO that mind and spirit are do
thioned from their old supremacy, are
no longer sovereign by right. but may
find some where by charity 8 place as
signed them. as appondages, perhaps
only as excrescenc6s, of the material
creationp I contend that evolution in
its highest form has not been q thing
heretofore unknown to history, to phi
losophy, Or. to theology. | contend
that it was before the mind Of St. Paul
when he taught that IN the fullness of
time God sen forth His Son. and of
Eusebius whom he wrote: "The Pro-
paration for tho Gospel" and of Au.
gustine when lie composed .'The City
of Cod" and, beautiful and splendid
as are the lessons taught by natural
objects they are-for Christendom, at
least-indelinitely beneath the sub
lime unfolding of the great drama of
human action, in which. through long
ages, Greece was making ready a Ian.
guage and an intellectual type and
Rome q framework of order and an
idea OF law, such that in them we're to
be shaped and fashioned the d~estin;es
OF q regenerated world. For those
who believe that the old foundations
are mistaken still, and that the fabric
built upon them will look dnwn for
ages on the floating wreck of many a
modern and boastful theory, it is diff
cult TO see anything but infatuation in
the destructive temperament which
leads TO the notion that'to substitute a
blind mechanism for the hand of God
III tAe atihlrs oi mo is 70 en!arSe the
scope OF remedial agency: that to dis.
miss. the highest of all inspirations is
to elevate the strain of human thought
and life; and that each of us is 10 re-
joice that our several units are to be
disintegrated at death into counties
millions of organisms;' for such. it
seems, is the latest ..revelation" de-
livered from the fragile tripod of a
modern Delphi. Assuredly on the
minds of those who after this fashion