The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1898-08-26

began to talk about that one man.
There was more talk about that one
man overheard than all the five hum
dred passengers that rode on in safe
ty. "Why did ne jump overboard?" Il
wonder when he jumped overboard?"
II wonder II when he jumped over
board he would liked to have jumped
back again ?""I wonder II fish caught
him, or whether he went clear down
to the bottom of the sea-" And for
three or four days afterward we talk
ed about that poor man.
Here is the glorious and magnificent
theory that God by his omnipotent
power made man, and by his omnipo-
tent power made the brute creation,
and by his omnipotent power made all
worlds, and five hundred scientists
have taken passage on board that mag
niflcent theory, but ten or fifteen
have jumped overheard. They make
more talk than all the five hundred
that did not jump. am politely asked
to jump with them. Thank you, gen
tlemen, am very much obliged to you.
l think l shall stick to the old Cunard-
er. If you want to jump overheard,
jump, and test for yourselves whether
your hand was really fish's fin, and
whether you were web-footed original
ly, and whether your lungs are swim
bladder. And as in every experiment
there must be a division of labor, some
who experiment and some who observe,
you make the experiment and l Will
observe!
There is one tenet of evolution which
it is demanded we adopt, that Whlcn
Darwin calls Natural Selection" and
that which Wallace calls the Survival
Of the Fittest." By this they mean
that the human race and the brute
creation are all the time improving
because the weak die and the strong
live. Those who do not die survive be-
cause they are the f1ttest. They say
the breed of sheep and cattle ana dogs
and men is all the time improving, ma
turally improving. No need OF God,
or any Bible, or any religion, but just
natural progress.
You see the race started with "spon-
taneous generation" and then 1t goes
right on until Darwin can take us up
with his natural selection" and wal
lace with his survival Of the tittest,
and so we go right on up forever.
Beautiful! But do the fittest survive!
Garfield dead in September-Guiteau
surviving until the following June.
Survival of the flttest?" All! no. The
martyrs, religious and political, dying
for their principles, their bloody per-
secutors living on to old age. sur
vival Of the fittest?" Five hundred
thousand brave northern men march
ing out to meet five hundred thousand
brave southern men, and die on the
battlefield for a principle. Hundreds
of thousands of them went down into
the grave trenches. We stayed at
home in comfortable quarters. Did
they die because they were not as tit
to live as we who survived? All! no;
not the Survival of the fittest." ELS
worth and Nathaniel Lyon falling on
the northern side. Albert Sidney
Johnston and Stonewall Jackson fall
ing on the southern side. Did they fall
because they were not as fit to live as
the soldiers and the generals who came
back in safety? No. Bitten with the
frosts of the second death be the
tongue that dares utter it! 1t is not
the Survival of the fittest."
How has it been in the families OF
the world? How was it with the
child physically the strongest, intellec-
tually the brightest, in disposition the
kindest? Did that child die because it
was not as fit to live as those of your
family that survived? Not 1.-THE sur
vival of the fittest." In all communi-
ties some of the noblest, grandest men
dying in youth, or in mid life, while
some of the meanest and most con-
temptible live on to old age. Not the
survival of the fittest."
But to show you that this doctrine is
antagonistic to the Bible and to COM
mon sense l have only to prove to you
that there has been no natural prog
ress. Vast improvement from another
source, but mind you no natural prog
ress. Where is the fine horse in any
of our parks whose picture of eye and
name and nostril and neck and launch
es is worthy of being compared to Jobs
picture of a horse as he thousands OF
years ago heard it paw and neigh and
champ its bit for the battle? Pigeons
of today not so wise as the carrier
pigeons Of 500 years ago-pigeons that
carried the mails from army to army
and from city to city; one Of them
flung into the sky at Rome or Venice
landing without ship or railtrain in
London. Look at the great animals
that walked the earth in olden times
animals compared with which in size
our elephant is cat-monsters of old
en- times that swan the deep, compared
with which our whale is minnow.
Comics have learned nothing about
hunting, and the ostrich nothing about
climbing and the hounds nothing about
Matching, and the condor nothing about
flying, and the owl nothing about mus
ical cadences for six thousand years.
Not particle of progress.
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