The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-09-09
THE EVOLUTION OF
RELIGION.
BY F. F. CORLISS.

determined by factors and forces that
are cosmic, hence fundamental.
Our lives are moulded, made or
marred according TO our right or
wrong use of these subtle universal
laws.
A philosophy of life that is based
on blind belief, on theories that are
false to facts, on the optimism Of
mans self-assumed Divine authority,
gives him no lasting good, but does fill
his life with doubt, despair and trou-
BILE.
Every man needs moral philoso-
ply that is irrefutable, that is scien-
tific, true, just, beneficial and beauti-
full and as logical as it is reverent.
We need not only science of ma
terial things, but science of things
spiritual: that attacks and dispels
both ignorance and superstition, their
paralyzing dogmas, monstrous fears.
We must know that God is immi-
nent throughout His universe. We
can ledIH Wlldl GOu anu man Is OLIy
by an understanding of His universal
laws in which His purpose and Him
self He is ever unfolding and to man
revealing.
Thus we must know that by evolu-
ton only has God made man and all
else that is, that ever was or that
ever is to be.
Because it's His only working, Gre
ating formula Hence all things and
all humanity are a growth, a develop
ment, an emanation, an unfolding ex-
preston from within His spiritual
forces made visibly manifest in in
Vulnerable material forms.
Emerson says: there is no bar or
wall in the soul where man, the eff
feet, ceases, and God, the Cause, be-
gins.
So man is true to his religion and
his Maker only when he is true to
man, his brother, because God and
man are both one life, different ex-
pressions of one mind, one conscious
ness.
The conception of evolution held by
those who believe in special creations,
simply by impulse of the Divine will,
dates from Darwin's Origin of Species
which treats of but one phase of evo-
luton.
So, many people restricts its Won
drous workings to one form of life,
and doubt and ponder on how man
from ape or monkey could come to be.
But God makes and rules all things
by laws that constitute His being.
And evolution is the one law, inclu-
sive of all others, which other laws
it uses.
Hence evolution is the one force
and method which changes, improves
and enlarges our religion, as it also
changes our language, literature, our
business and social relations.
1t is the one and only method by
which men and material things are
raised from lower to higher levels
1t changes our mode of living and of
doing things. 1t is what unites men
in cooperation in industry, in form
ing colonies, villages, towns, cities
and states. 1t effects changes in many
ways in men and material for their
Improvement. 1t gives to nations in
creased wealth, position and power
when they follow natures laws by her
unfolding process of gradual growth.
AS yeast lifts, lightens and i'm
proves our daily loaf, so evolution in
its use of cosmic forces, works like
an engine to lift latent, dormant
life in the mineral kingdom to a high
er level in the organic kingdom of
vegetable and animal .iIe.
Then it keeps on making life more
and more dynamic, improves it phys-
cally in type and form, improves it
mentally, morally and spiritually, and
does not cease with men here and now
as we find him on this planet
So our religion is no exception to
this universal law and its transforma-
tions.
AS man changes, grows and i'm
proves morally and mentally, from
better understanding of natures laws,
so in conformity his errors in relig-
ious belief and his outward forms of
worship change to meet the conditions
of new found truth.
Religion is instructive in the human
race-a Divine attribute born in US,
and while in many minds it often lies
dormant for years, when some crisis
in life appears it is suddenly quick
ened into thought and action.
All religions had their conception in
the childhood of humanity. They
were born in the minds of tribesmen
and shepherds, among crude and prim-
tive people, and were adapted to the
capacity of their limited understand
ing of what God, man and the uni
verse really are. They served the
needs of the people of that era when
a so-called miracle or craven image
symbolized as much of God to them
L. ~.