The Blackpool Herald. — 1879-08-29 (Blackpool, Lancashire, England)

THOMAS COOPER ON THE EVOLUTION THEORY. On Sunday last Mr. Thomas Cooper, author of the "Purgatory of Suicides," preached in the United Methodist Free Church, Blackpool, morning and evening, to large congregations. In the morning his discourse was on "Prayer," and:in the evening on the "Atonement." On Monday evening, in the same place of worship, Mr. Cooper delivered a lecture on " Evolution. ' There was a good attendance, presided over by the Rev. S. Stafford. After giving a concise dissertation upon the written doctrines and views of philosophers and men of science, Mr. Cooper said that in the year 1844 a peculiar book appeared in this country. It was much talked of, and many guesses were made as to its authorship, but he did nit know even now who was its author. It was entitled "Vestiges of Creation." The writer was rather more modest than many similar authors, and spoke of God with reverence. He was a different writer to Darwin, who showed no reverence to God as the Creator. The writer's doctrine was that of "Development." that one animal was developed from another. In time that work went down, and in 1858 two papers were read on "The Origin of Species," by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace, and in the following year was published "The Origin of Species by Natural Selection." But what did that mean? A stone could not select anything, neither could a tree, or a flower. Only a person could select. In the third chapter of the book, however, was la ?sort of explanation. It was entitled "The Struggle for Existence," and showed that the battle of life was going on amongst plants, as well as amongst animals. It was shown that some plants so impoverished the soil and were of such a nature that they killed other plants. Mr. Herbert Spencer followed up Mr. Darwin's doctrines to a certain extent, but from being a disciple wanted afterwards to teach a teacher, and'said that Mr. Darwin made too much of "natural selection." Mr. Spencer gave it a new name, "Evolution," and that doctrine had spread at home and abroad. It was held by those who adopted it that doubtless all the animals and flowers of any particular species had come from, or been developed from, one. After pointing out that God had never made two things alike, that no two flowers, or leaves, or human aces, and even that no two eyes, or no two hairs n the human head were alike, the lecturer remarked that no one ever bred a pigeon into a jackdaw, or any particular animal into another species. No one ever dreamt of doing so, except those who were always dreaming. If any one present happened to possess one of Darwin's first edition, he advised them to keep it, for it would be worth something after a while. (Laughter.) The argument of the origin of the whale was left out of the second edition, and he (the lecturer) wished Mr. Darwin had left out of all his editions his wonderful notions about the human eye. How different were the doctrines of Darwin and those who ignored God to those of the old philosophers, and those of his friend W. J. Fox, who held that God filled creation with the lovely and the beautiful; and those of Charles Kingsley, who when dying was heard by his daughter to say, "How beautiful God is I" That showed that he had been thinking to himself that God filled all the earth with beauty, and so gave utterance to the remark. He VMS afraid that in Germany they had gone even further than Mr. Darwin's doctrines, and that a worse doctrine had come out of it, and that was "Pessimism," which meant that everything existed for the worst. They held that man was a miserable creature, and that the world was not worth living for. They held that there was no God, no accountability, no responsibility; that it did not matter what we did for whatever we did we could not help ourselves. Our philosophers had not yet got to such &doctrine as that, but they came very near it. Huxley held that a man was an automaton, and recently Tyndall was applauded in the Birmingham Town Hall, when teaching that man had no free will, and that what one did he could not help. They were degrading doctrines, and the man who believed in them was a swine in habit, and was degraded. If there was no hereafter, no accountability, no responsibility, how came we to have consciences, which told us when we were doing wrong? For our guide we must accept God and God's Word alone. In God there was no uncertainty, and we must cleave to His words. Mr. Cooper on Tuesday evening took for his subject "The Stone Book unopened." The Rev. J. T. Carom (Congregationalist) occupied the chair. The subject of Wednesday's lecture was "The Mosaic Record of Creation attested by Modern Discovery."  Ontirownan AND SHOT at Latham's Gossett Stores, Eaststreet, Fleetwood.