The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-03

DR.. Ravlin addressed a large audi
ence at the recently organized Peoples
church at A. o. U. w. han last evening,
his theme being Who Was Gains
Wife,"
He said, in part:
Some of you wonder at the subject
that L am advertised to speak upon to-
night, and be unable to see what there
is in it, and yet when you understand
that the very principle and tenet of the
old theology, Catholic and Protestant
from first to last, from beginning to
end, rests upon this subject and its cor
rect answer, then you will not wonder.
You can all remember when you were
little boys and girls, how they cate
chlsed you ever in your own home or in
Sunday school in something like this
style: Who was the first man?
Adam. Who was the first woman?
Eve. Who was the first born? Cain.
Who was his brother? Abel That is
what We were taught from our earliest
recollection; that the human race, in all
Its diverse species, descended from
Adam and Eve. In other words that
they were the beginning of mans ex-
1stence upon the earth. There are null
titudes that think so still, millions of
them, and yet l want to say to YOU
IN the Baptist pulpit 1 preached the
theory of pre-Adamic races of men
without fear and without any concern
whatever as to what my deacOns on the
right or on the left might say concern
ing the preaching. The progressive
elements thought it was heresy: the
progressive portions of the church re-
Sarded it as sound reasoning.
There is not a clergyman between the
Two oceans that does not dislike very
much TO have a Skeptic ask him where
cam found his wife and who he mar
ried- Ministers do not like such a
query as that, and who knows it better
than one who has had the question
asked him scores of times by inddeIs
and skeptics? SO far as evasion is pos
sible, We evaded it.
You should not ask such questiOnsl
you tread on dangerous grOundi Such
a course leads to doubt, and doubt to
unbelief, and unbelief to damnatiOn.
That is the way we would answer the
skept1cs when they would ask us that
question, because We were not foolish.
but we could see the logical trend of
the question and where it led to-but
when you corner Mr.. Preacher and re-
1uSe TO be turned aside and demand an
answer, they Will tell you Cain married
his sister, which is the ultimate reply
OF every clergyman, and if he does not
SANS you lHdC reply he has simply pro-
gresed out of the old conceptions.
though he does not give it to his peo-
pie. And what does that lead to? What
does 1t mea1? Married his sister,
The doctor continued from his stand
point to state that Cain did not marry
his sisters at ail-but that he married
someone of the women in the Land of
Nod and that those people came from
people other than the Jewish race; that
Adam was merely the beginning of the
race. He maintained that there were
pre-Adamic races and that there were
numerous evidences and that they were
constantly accommodating.
he then referred to geological data
TO prove that this earth was inhabited
ages before and cited as one instance
the discovery in Indian Territory of an
entire cemetery over a mile in length
where thousands of warriors were
buried by the debris, eight feet in
depth, overgrOwn with a gigantic for
est, which, in the natural course Of
events would have taken at least 35.
600 years to accomplish.
The doctor then denied that Adam
and Eve, Cain and Abel ever existed;
that the Garden of Eden represents
love; that Adam is the masculine prin-
ciple; Eve the female-or mother prin-
ciple; that Cain represents the lower
propensities and Abel the higher in
tellectual and spiritual principles