Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1898-08-25

improving. NO llCco Vi NOu vi any DlDio
or any religion, but just natural progress
Not the Survival of the Fittest.
You SEQ, tho race started with "spon-
taneous generation" and then it goes
right on until Darwin can take us up with
his natural selection" and Wallace with
his "survival of the flttest," and so we go
right on up forever. Beautiful But do
the flttest survive? Garfield dead in Sep
tember; Guteau surviving until the fol-
lowing June. Survival of tho fittesty"
An, mol The martyrs religious and po-
litical dying for their principles, their
bloody prosecutors living on to old age
Survival of the flttest?" Five hundred
thousand brave northern men marching
out to meet 300 600 brave southern men
and die on the battlefield for a principlol
Hundreds Of thousands of them went
down into tho grave trenches. We staid
at home in comfortable quarters. Did
they die because they were not us 1T to
live Us we who survived? All, no, not tho
survival of the fittest" Ellsworth and
Nathaniel Lyon falling on the northern
side; Albert Sidney Johnston and Stone
wall jackson falling 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? MOI Bitten with
the frosts of the second death be the tongue
that darcs utter It! 1t is not the "sur.
vival Of the flttest."
How has it been in the families of the
worldY How was it with the child phys
ically tho strongest intellectually tho
brightest, in disposition tho kndcstY Did
that child die because it was not us 1T to
live as those Of your family that survivedg
Not "tho survival of the tttcst." In all
communities some of tho noblcst grand
est men dying in youth or in midlifc,
while some of the meancst and most con-
tcmptiblc 1.-Two on to old age. Not "the
survival of the fittcst."
But to show you that this doctrine Is
antagonistic to the Bible and to common
sense | have only to provo to you that
there has been no natural progress Vast
improvement from another source, but
mind you, no natural progress. Whore is
the fine horse in any of our parks whose
picture of eye and name and nostril and
neck and launches is worthy of being
compared to Jobs picture Of horse as no
thousands of years ago heard IL paw and
neigh and champ its bit for tho battle?
Pigeons of today not so wise as the carrier
pigeons of 800 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 with
out ship or rail train in London. Look at
the great animals that walked the earth in
oldcn timcs-nnimals compared with
which in size our elephant is a cat-mon-
stcrs of oldcn times that swan the deep,
compared with which our whale is a min
now. Comics have learned nothing about
climbing, and the hounds nothing about
hunting, and the ostrich nothing about
Matching, and the condor nothing about
flying, and the owl nothing about musical
cadcnccs for 5000 years. Not "a particle
of progress.
And as to the human race, so far rs
nero natural progress is concerned, once
there were men 10 feet high; now the NV
cragc is about feet inches. 1t started
with men living 200, 400, 500, 800 years,
and now 30 years is more than the aver
age of human life. Mighty progress we
have made, haven't WEI | went into the
cathedral at York, England, and the best
artists in England had Just been painting
u window in that cathedral, and right be-
side it was window painted 400 years
ago, and there Is not a man on earth but
would say that tho modern painting of the
window by the best artists of England Is
not worthy of being compared with the
painting of 400 years ago right beside it.
| Vast improvement, rs l shall show you
in u minute or two, but no natural evolu.
| ton.
Look at China, where evolution has had
full swing for thousands of years unintcr'
ruptcd by anything except here and there
a mission station with this dcfunct book,
the Bible, but through the most OF the
realm not intcrfercd with. What has evo-
luton done for China? Christian civiliza-
tion goes in and builds railroad; they
tear it up. For 1000 years the Chinese
nation, where 1t Is not invaded by the Cos
pei, has not made one -ilve-hundrcd-mil
lionth part of an inch of advancement.
| They worship tho same gods of red paint.
Just as always they drown tho female
children as n nuisance. just as always
they eat with chopsticks. So in India, SC
in Arabia, so in Turkey, so everywhere
where the gospel has not made an invasion.
Evolution Downward.
] tell you, my friends, that natural cvo
luton Is not upward, but it is Away.
downward. Hear Christ's account of it,
Fifteenth Matthew and nineteenth verse
"Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts
murders, adulteries, foundations, thcfts
false witness, blasphomies. " That is what
Christ said of evolution. Give natural
evolution full swing in our world and il
will evolve into two hcmisphcrcs of crime
two hemisphcrcs of penitentiary, two hem
isphcres Of lazaretto, two hemisphercs OF
brothcl. New York Tombs Moyamcnsing
prison, Philadelphia Seven Dials, Londoi
and Cowgate, Edinburgh, only fostering
Carbunclcs on the face and neck of natura
evolution. See what the Bible says about
tho heart and then what evolution say.
about the heart. Evolution says, Better
md better and better gets tho heart by
natural improvement" The Bible says
1.-The heart is deceitfrl above all things
and desperately wicked. Who can know
iE' When you can evolve fragrance froI
malodor, and can evolve an oratorio fror
n buzzsaw, and can evolve fall pippins fror
n basket Of docayod crab apples, then 20
can by natural evolution from the huma
heart develop goodness. All, my friends
natural evolution is always downward;
is never upward.
What is remarkable about this thing
1t Is all the time developing its dishonesty
In our day it is ascrbing this evolution I
Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin.
is a dishonesty. Evolution was know
and advocated hundreds of years bcfoi
these gentlemen began to be evolved. ri
Phnnicians thousands Of years ago d,
clared that the human race wabblcd out
the mud. Democritus, who lived AZ
| years before Christ-remember that
| knew this doctrine of evolution when |
said: Everything is composed Of atom
t or infinitely small olements, each with
D definite quality, form and movemon
r whose inevitable union and separatio