Morning journal and courier., 1890-11-10
Monday, November 10, 1890.
ON HUMANITY.


In Humanity q Fallen Racef-The
subject as Treated by Rev. Mr..
Souires I'm Hfs Morning Discourse
yesterday.
At the Church of the Messiah First
-Universalist) yesterday morning, Rev. L
Il. Squires spoke on the subject: "Is HUI
msnity Fallen Racer Text, Cor,
15, 46: ''That was not first which is spirit
ual, but that which is natural; and after
ward that which is spiritual The first
man il of the earth, earthly"
The speaker said that if We assume the
hypothesis of the mechanism theory of
creation, that God made man perfect in
tho beginning, that we may logically con-
clude that man has had fall, since he is
sinful and imperfect now.
But, if we assume the evolutionary
theory of creation, there is no place for
the doctrine of the fall of man. Both
theories can cite scripture for support.
Aside from scripture the former theory
has no support, while the evolutionary
is confirmed by science, history and nat
ural and physiological law. All life is q
process of growth and Development.
Nothing is made perfect in its beginning.
The possibility of growth precludes per-
lection to start with.
History indicates that humanity began
at the lowest point. Primitive man dwelt
in caves and dugouts, and fought the bat
tie of life with wild beasts, near whose
sciences, ignorant of the world on whi CHI
he lived and unable to tell the story of HI g
own rude life. But humanity has been
growing as everything else grows, from
infancy to manhood. Instead of fallen
race mankind is rising one. As Thomas
K. Butcher said: 'sIf man ever had fall
it was fall upstairs"
The results to religion of this change of
view are good. The old theology said:
Gin Adams fall we sinned all" 1t i'm
posed upon man a horrible fatality He
was cursed before birth for the sin of
others. Then concerning salvation he
was taught, "Jesus paid it all, all the debt
! owe"
With his stsins' on Adam and his stmer-
its" on Jesus there was nothing left of man
but his worthlessness.
The new theology brings an increased
sense of personal responsibility. 1t says we
are not damned unless we choose to damn
ourselves, and neither will we be allowed
to slip into heaven Under the merit of some
other name; but everyone must stand or
fall on his account.
The new theology gives us more inspir-
ing hope. If we are fallen race, then hu
man progress is like the Irishman's journey
who slipped back two feet for every one he
got ahead. We are worse off now than in
the beginning. But with the evolutionary
theory of humanity all history confirms
our faith in God. Man is not failure.
Gods purpose has never been frustrated
| by woman. The creative process still
| goes on. The world is growing better.
Bigots may sneer about an ancestry of apes,
but God made the apes. And better an
| ancestry with the apes leading unerringly
up to sainthood than an ancestry with
Adam leading through fallen race down
to hell.
The truth is, the doctrine of the fall OF
man in Adam is a fiction of some diseased
| imagination, and has no foundation in
| truth. Man is not fallen race, but q
| rising one. We are not penal colony of
condemned criminals, but a family of
Gods children taking here our first les
sons in life, stumbling in our weakness,
but-"Stumbling on the worlds great al
tar slams that slope through darkness up
| to God" And for the perfect man we
look not back to Eden and the world in
| its infancy, but forward to the life that is
1 to be when Gods creative process is fin
4 ssh