The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-11-26
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the wolf in this form caused a huge cry
to be raised. The defenders Of this
/ modern wolf were not burned at the
stake, only because that day has passed.
The echo of this cry has not as yet die
away, and timid people still look at this
wolf with fear, but l think most intel
| ligent persons have found it to be harm
less. The same law that controls the
development Of the egg has presided
over the creation of worlds. Religion
has long ago accepted the one, but it
has not yet had time to adjust itself
to the other. But as it has already ac-
copied the law of gravitation as the di-
vine mode of SuStentation, it will also
| accept the law of evolution in its full
ness as the divine mode of creation. All
| theological thought, and perhaps the
| greatest change in traditional Views that
has taken place, since the birth OF Chris
tianity. But let no one fear, We have
seen that religion is a growing thing,
and it has adjusted itself to many a
change in the past, and then as now
nothing essential to 1t will be destroyed.
| Religion has never lost a truth; 1t has
only abandoned certain errors Which
were a source of weakness. Every such
step has raised religion to a higher
LAS / lave treated of the new con-
| ceptions of God and the universe in a
former lecture, I will say but q few words
in passing, and this because there is a
popular impression that evolution is cold
ly materialstic. In my Judgment, 1t
alone is theistic. The truth is, there is
no necessary connection between evolu-
ton and nlaterialism, and the former has
not added a feathers weight to the rea-
sonableness of the latter. The one is an
established law of nature, the other only
body knows that man has developed
from a microscopic p~rotoplasm, and yet
this does not destroy the idea of God
as our individual maker. Why, then,
originated by evolution destroy our be-
lief in God as the creator Of species?
No, evolution does not destroy the idea>
Of God, but it does destroy certain
Of Him. 1t has necessitated a recon-
struction of the God idea, as previously
pointed out. Evolution teaches us that
this is not a dead universe in which life
happens, but it is in and of itself living.
1t is in fact a living organism, Of which
God is its eternal life and soul.
GOD IN NATURE.
But evolution has effectually done
away with all notions of a localized
Deity, of a being apart from nature.
1t is no longer God and nature, but
dent in the universe. According TO this
| view the phenomena of nature are naught
else than objectifed modes of divine
thought, the forces Of nature naught
SASS AoAA -
present divine energy or will, invariable
because He is perfect and Interchangeable.
Man, then, is not orphaned. nor alien
from God, for he is in the living pres
ence of the Omnipresent Fatherhood. 1t
is evolution that has given US positive
knowledge OF a supreme purpose. work
ing as consciousness in lower life, but
rising in man, through and from his
animal heredity into the superb beauty,
a~daptability and power of self-con-
seriousness that scans the universe untfl
1e,-aiOr,c of Tho TaApttaT tee the All in
All.
"I repeat tina the universe to be
rightly conprehended must not be
thought of as a mechanical system, oc-
out, but as organism which implies
a spiritual principle at the beginning as
its continuous informing life, and as its
end. Every pulsation Of the universe is
a manifestation of the everything God.
1t is God in eternal activity.
Another important reconstruction ne
cessitated by evolution is the doctrine of
salvation. From the establishment of
man, what follows? Why this-that
there has never been a fall; and IRON from
system of theological machinery for de-
livering him from what has never hap
pened is uncalled for. We are obliged,
then, at once to set aside all mechanical,
artificial and mercantile schemes of sal
walton. The evolutionist must reject the
doctrine that Jesus was offered as a
SdCrI1Ce 10 pTOptLldlS Tic WRATH VI Gil
angry Deity, or to suffer the penalty
due mans transgression, or to counteract
the evils brought into the world through
Adam, for he believes in no such fall of
the race in Adam or in anyone else.
He realizes that man was not created
perfect, but that he began at the very
bottom, and has been gradually strug-
Cling up through the savage and half
barbarous conditions to the heights of
ight and knowledge and peace. And in
this process of unfolding and ripening
o-N ~ NAnA ~
exclusively does the work: the school,
the home, companionship, books, all of
these things help. Each does its work in
developing man and bringing out the
no greater influence that appeals to mar
on his moral and spiritual side than the
life and words of Jesus Christ. Evolu-
fuous. But as man is a moral being,
and sin is a moral evil, Christ can only
save US by moral influences. Salvation
Is perfection; II consists in a develop
ment of our moral and spiritual natures.
Jesus can only teach US the way and
move US to walk in that way
He y-can only use moral forces, all
others being excluded by the nature Of
the work. Salvation is complete man
portion to his character. The process is
one of development, of evolution, of the
bringing a man from a low level morally
to a high level, not in any mysterious
way oob ~ tAtC Vi LIS Wv J.
native qualities. Man is saved morally
the same as he is saved intellectually.
If a man is ignorant, to save him in
tellectually would be to raise him to a
higher intellectual standard. This could
not be done by having some one suffer
for the mistakes of his ignorance; that
would only confirm him in his depravity.
And so morally man cannot be saved by
someone suffering for his misdeeds; that
would only confirm him in his sin. No
suffering of the innocent can raise man
to a higher life. No scheme can be
devised to escape the law of evolution.
righteousness of life must be attained
by human effort, by the application OF
our own power, through the aid of the
us to bring us to perfection. There can
be no salvation, spiritual health, by the
suffering of another in our place. The
nature of things is such that every man
must realize in his own experience the
consequences of his own thinking, will
ing and doing.
"Although we do rot need salvation
from a moral wreckage which never oc-
Cured, still we are in need of saving
and helping souls to inspire us, to help
US in our upward struggle, to show us
how to overcome trial and temptation.
We are all saviors one to another just in
the degree of our h~elpfulness; but there
are some who are eminently so in the
Jesus of Nazareth. Evolution, then, does
not dispense with the Christs, the Zor-
casters, the Mohammeds, the Buddhas;
each has had his work to do in helping
on the moral evolution of the world.
These are but a few of the recon
structions Of theological thought neees-
STATED by evolution. They. however,
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