The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-04-10
ABOUT EVOLUTION
Days Of sDogmatic Theo-
logy Have Passed Away.
laws of Nature are Fixed Teach
science of Man-The Universe.

EDITOR p. c. Al have read with
interest the communication which APP
pears in an issue of the Advertiser
from your correspondent relative to
the subject of immortality. 1t ought to
be a matter of congratulation TO the
more thoughtful members of this COM
munity that there should be here so
earnest and so eloquent an exponent
of the practical side of the Christian
religion as the Rev. Mr.. Kincaid, and
that the columns of your excellent pa
per are open to the discussion of these
subjects, which are of trancendent in
terest and Importance to us all. 1t
were we'll if the influence of the public
press throughout the world could be
welded in the same worthy cause, in
stead of being so universally prostitut-
ed to the accounting of social scandals,
murders, crimes and prize fights, with
all their revolving details.
Without attempting to traverse the
various arguments brought forward by
YOUR correspondent in defense Of, and
in opposition to, the doctrine OF evo-
luton in it's relation TO Immortality, :
NAV perhaps be permitted to offer a
word or two. In the first place l fall
to see in his letter the slightest oppo-
sition to the views expressed in the
recently delivered series of discourses
by the respected minister of the Cen
trail Union church. l have had the priv
ilege of regularly listening to the ro-
bust and stimulating preaching Of Mr..
Kincaid during the past three months,
and would unquestionally regard him
as a firm adherent Gas indeed what
thoughtful and intelligent man is noD
to the accepted theory of evolution, as
taught by modern scientific discovery.
The day of medieval and dogmatic
theology, with its creedS, images, doc
trines of election, predestinatiOn, eter-
nal punishment, and all the rest of its
traditional rubbish, is steadily and
surely passing away, and we are re-
turning to the simple, lntelliglble, but
yet perfectly adequate, conception OF
Christianity as taught by its Divine
Founder and His disciples. To what
influence is this mainly due? l would
unhesitatingly reply, to the teachings
of science as revealed in nature and IN
the heart and conscience OF man him.
self Natures laws are fixed, eternal, a
perfect unity, and cannot be set aside;
they have the inspiration and breath OF
the Creator upon them. Our dogmatc
theology. on the other hand, Is en-
numbered by mass OF dusty coDWeDs
spun out of mems unhealthy magma
tons: it savors of dyspepsia, and all
manner of diseases. Even our popular
and most modern hymns are tainted
with a sort of 1eprosy, sickly sentl-
mentalism, which cannot be otherwise
than harmful, especially to the minds
of children and young people. l can
call to mind many passages in 1llustra-
ton of this. Take, for example, the
following lines from a we'll known
hymn:
20 Paradise, o Paradise, the world is
growing old.
long to be where Jesus is, where love
is never cold
and immoral, but untrue. Evolution,
as taught by science, has ushered a
new hope into the world, in contrast to
the old belief in mans depravity and
universal sin; it tells us in unmistak-
able terms that the Universe is fresh
and young, that its youth is perennial.
Changes do certainly occur throughout
the natural world but there is no de-
III L o.
times of humiliation, but in strict
truth there is no such word. We watch
the growth of tree, plant or flow
er, we see the putting forth of buds
and blossoms-the first blush of moth
erhood-the successive gradatlons OF
development in the leaf and the fruit.
In the process of time these wither
away, they are trodden under foot, or
are cast to the winds and waves, but
sooner or later the vital principle of
life in the organism asserts itself under
new conditions of environment, and
thus goes on an infinite cycle of regen-
Grafton and reproduction. If matter
then cannot be destroyed. surely the
living soul can never die. The most
eminent authorities assure us that the
immaterial or spiritual part of the
universe constitutes by far the greater
part, that the energies and forces that
work unseen are more potent than
those that we see. We cannot under
stand yet, and will probably never
understand with our present limited
faculties, the mysterious connection or
relation between the material brain of
man and the processes Of thought and
sensation, but why trouble ourselves
with the mystery? We think. we feel.
we live and we know that we think.
and feel and live. Let us accept our
consciousness as a convincing proof
that our souls are immortal, that we
are a part of the Eternal. We know
that at the very moment of death. when
the body is wasted to a shadow by suf-
fering and disease, that the intellect