St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-10-20
A MODIFIED THEORY.
Effects Of Evolution on Our Ide;
of Evil

Effects of Evolution on Our Idea
of Evil.
The Grand opera house was filled to the
galleries yesterday morning during the
religious services of the First Unitarian
church. The Haydn quartette added
much to the interest in the services by
their singing. The subject of Rev. W.
S. Yail's discourse was GLOW Eyolu-
ton Modifies Our Idea of Evil" The
text was: ''In the world We shall have
tribulation; be of good cheer; | have
overcome the world" John xvi. SO.
have proposed to show how the rise
of the modern doctrine of evolution
has modified our theory of the evil we
see in the world. L propose to do this
by asking you to follow me through the
general changes that have come over
the mind of man in his connection with
this problem. and if in the first cases
we seem to be little remote from our
objective point, we will have the salts
faction of knowing, when we are done,
that we have touched the vital points
all along the line of human experience.
Primitive man accounted for good and
evil in the world by having gods both
good and bad, both constant and ca
PRECIOUS, both generous and malignant.
1T was not considered incongruouS to
describe a meeting of dietieS on Mount
Olympus, and battle in which trees
and stones were hurled and the waters
of the lake were set OH fire. 1t was not
considered out of the way to go down
on your knees and worship at the shrine
of god who was hated by you on
account of his character. because it was
we'll known that your strength was no
match for his, and that your service
was merely for the purpose of placating
his wrath. Power to heave the mount
ains-to send the storm coursing over
the plain-tO blast the haryeSt-to dry
up the StreamS-pOWer in the earth
quake and the volcano and the tidal
wave. These were the things supposed
to be represented in the god, and they
were to placate the power of this being
by praise and flattery. Like much of
modern religion, the chief motive was
self protection, motive which seems
very strange when we fully realize the
low level on which it places God, and
its clear contradiction of the character
of Christ. While / do not think that
life is a charge of the light brigade, l
still feel that it is very full of struggle,
and that any one of us, if we are at all
faithful to our trusts, may say with
Adelaide Proctor
What is life, father?''
"A battle. nay child,
Where the stouteSt lance may fail.
Where the wariest eye may be beguiled
And the stoutest heart may fail;
Where the foes are gathered on every hand,
Aud rest not by day or night,
And the feeble little ones must stand
In the thickest of the fight
Then it appears when we come to
study life as it is that the making of
man implies the power of choice, and an
original impulse to virtue, and these can
only be used with such knowledge as we
have and must involve us all in mis-
takes and in willful SIN. In this view sin
| is not the result of a curse, nor of the
| influence of a bad god or worse devil;
| it is a misuse of powers. a man
| is not clock. to have works taken out
and new set put in; he Is an instrument
| of music, but his nature, as Charles
Lamb puts it, is like sweet bells
! tangled and out of tune Even the
| sensual appetites controlled by the
! principles OF honor are the foundation
| of our home life and nourish the high
est sentiments. Then be sure to dis
| crininate between virtue and inno-
cence. An innocent man is plant of
tender growth, and most liable to be
| deceived. A virtuouS man is one who
may go through the furnace of tempt a.
ton unScathed. Your business man
! becomes strong because his progress is
| disputed at every etep and every re-
! source is taxed. Take the lines that
sorrow and care cut in the face of Mr..
| Lincoln out, and he is no longer our
| martyr president-yOu have taken away
that which made him. And when you
! see Christ marching away to the hill
4 of crucifiXiOn. bearing the heavy cross,
sorowing for the people on whom a
! heavier burden must come, does it seem
| to you that his life would have been
! what it was without that cross?
And finally comes q fact that demands
a sermon for itself, the fact of heredity.
] Here is a boy seut out at the age of
/ twepty-one, into the world. He mar
| ries. and, together with his wife, repre-
| sentS two families, but how many peo-
| pie? Can any one tell how many inner
| tied diseases will reappear in that fam
| lily? Can any one tell whether one of the
children may not reproduce some buc.
4 cancer Of the past history? Who shall
say that some ancestor may not bequeath
his faint of blood to that happy family,
and darken every subsequent page of its
| history, and all this in the face OF the
| most earnest endeayor to live the best
| and most Christian life? All we can say
is that the world is unit and that it
| must be purified as a unit, that if
| Nature here adheres to the compensa-
! tions, mentioned before, we may rest as
| snIed that even SO sad a problem will
in the final outcome be properly adj
| justed, and in this God. through natural
| agencies, will overcome all that is dark
| and bad. We believe that i'm order to
! have virtue there must be liberty. and
| that man beginning at low scale. by
1 divine impulse, overcCmeS step by step,
that this is the education OF humanity,
which, like the Master, will finally be
able to say, II have overcome the
| xaorld y