The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-17

capable of communing with and en-
joying him has given them a function
without which they could not be nigh
ty.
The book evnoes much weakness
and it would almost seem stupidity,
when it says; THE absence of evil
would mean stagnation, quiescence, un-
pfegressiVenesS." No man who has
ever carefully looked over this world
could permit himself to say such as
this. For quite the reverse is true. In
China, India, Africa and other heath
en- realms evil is in the ascendant, as
there above all other places we find
"stagnation, quiescence and unpro-
gressiveness." In the United States
and England good is in the ascendant,
and here we see progressiveness SC
powerful that it overwhelms stagna-
ton.
The book is also far afield when it
represents evil as necessary before we
can become fashioned in Gods inn
age" Just the opposite of this is true.
The best authority a~serts that man
lost the divine image by the introduce
ton of evil. He was originally created
in that image, and when he yielded
to sin the image was effaced, only to
be renewed by the processes of regen-
Grafton through redemption by Jesus
mic processes. If the author We're to
go deeply and broadly enough into ma
ture he would see that life lives by life.
| That this accounts for the wholesale
sacrifices constantly going on in ma
ture; that this explains Darwin's the
DRY of natural selection and Spen-
GERS survival of the fittest''; and that
this same prevalent principle so evil
dent in the "cosmic process" reached
up into the ethical and spiritual pro-
cesses and demanded the manifesto
ton and slaughter of the Son of God
himself that humanity might live by
His life and be redeemed by His death.
But the old trouble of specialists,
whether they be naturalists or theo-
logians, has not passed by Mr.. Fiske.
That trouble is yet partiality of vision.
The author has the reputation of be-
| ing a broad, clear deep thinker. He is
so to quite an extent. But he is not
enough SO to do justice to the theme
he treats in this book.
If he were he would see and declare
differently. He would see that the
"cosmic process" of which he speaks
so much is only an infinite method OPP
Grated by an infinite operator. He
would not speak of the "cosmic pro-
| cess" as if it were operating instead of
operated. He would understand from
innumerable marks of infinite intelli-
gence, love and power that the Cos
mic process has no more power to OPP
crate itself than had Dewey's ships to
sail into Manila bay and smash the
Spanish fleet without the guiding will
of Dewey. His approval and praise of
Alfred Russell Wallaoe's plan of the
primate manifests incompeteney.
Such speeulations as these come from
the authors premises. He is evident
ly narrow evolutioniSt, and a narrow
evolutionist is as much at logical, his
torical and philosophical disadvantage
as any other kind of partialist The
book is so blind that it APP
pears to assume that the great
universe conducts itself. The
Creator seems to have deserted His
own creation. The great mechanician
never mounts his own machine, even
to inaugurate so sublime being as man.
He left that most magnificent event to
little primate some millions of years
ago. that by chance took a notion of
being mbre intellectual and psychical
than its fellows, and hence the superb
result. And this is scienee Oh, i'm
mortals! If this be science, then what
is nescience?
When will scientists, so called, be-
come sagacious to see that nothing can
rise higher than its source; that I'M
less man came from God he never can
return to God; that IL man is immortal,
he must have only breathed the breath
of Immortality, not by a tiny primate
but by the Almighty breath?
When Will naturalists become shrewd
and sage to see that there is not only
unity in all nature, but a unity in all
nature and grace, matter and spirit,
and that the great ultimate object is
development of beings through COM
bined processes of matter and spirit
| nature and grace, who shall be capable
Of rising to the sublime height and SUI
perb character of sons of God to know.
obey, love and exult in Him and His
forever?
The greatest weakness of the book
is that 1t proceeds without
reckoning with these supreme
facts and forces. Any man who
tried to diagnose or decipher a cosnic
process or any other process by
which men may come with the best
success to God without taking into ac
count mans creation by God, his fall
by sin, and his redemption by Jesus
Christ simply runs his ship ashore. This
is what the book does.
The man who can be deep, high, and