Evolution does not account for sin. Much less does it have any cure
for sin. If sin marks progress or advancement, of course, its cure
would be retrogression. But how can sin be cured? What answer has
evolution? Culture, education, refinement, favorable environment.
These are all desirable, but no cure for sin. Some of the most
cultured, educated and refined, were the greatest monsters that ever
lived. Wholesale murderers like Nero, Alexander and Napoleon, had a
good degree of education and culture. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb,
who murdered Robert Franks in Chicago, were among the most brilliant
graduates of universities. Friends say they were led on to atheism and
crime by the reading of modernist books. No doubt, the doctrine of
evolution, taught so zealously in the universities, played a large
part.
Human efforts and human devices have utterly failed to cure sin. The
human will is too feeble to resist its power.
The Bible, which evolution undermines, teaches us there is a cure for
sin. The divine Son of God saves us from our sins, cleanses and
purifies our natures, and fits us for happiness and service in both
worlds. Jesus offers the only practical plan of salvation from
sin. The Bible plan of redemption is the only plan that works.
Paul, a murderer, with his heart full of malignant hate, and his hands
stained with blood, greedy to imprison men and women, "breathing out
threatening and slaughter," looks to Jesus by simple faith, and is
changed into a gentle and loving Christian, rejoicing in suffering and
persecution. He rose to such heights, by the help of Jesus, that he
loved his enemies, and was willing to be damned, if that would save
their souls. What glorious men the apostles became by the transforming
power of Christ! What grand men and women the long line of martyrs
were. The men and women who have blest the world most, have been
believers in the Bible, and not in evolution. Perhaps a million
martyrs have died for Christ. Where are the martyrs for evolution?
Augustine was redeemed from a life of vice and dissipation, blessed
the world with his writings, and became one of the greatest leaders of
thought in all ages. John Bunyan was so profane that the most vicious
would cross the street to avoid him. The gospel made him one of the
holiest of men. His Pilgrim's Progress has been translated into
hundreds of languages, and read by millions. John G. Woolley was a
maudlin drunkard, intent on taking his own life,--friends, money,
character, and reputation lost,--but was converted and preached, with
burning eloquence, the gospel of temperance and prohibition around the
world.
Elijah P. Brown, a zealous infidel, heard Mr. Moody preach on the love
of God, found the Savior, and became a brilliant defender of the
faith.
Chundra Lela, the daughter of a Brahman priest, spent a fortune and
lived a life of self inflicted torture, seeking salvation at all the
great shrines of India, but found none, until she heard the simple
story of Jesus from the lips of a missionary. That matchless name gave
her victory over sin, and transformed her into a saint and soul-winner
for Christ. Maurice Ruben, a successful Jewish merchant of Pittsburgh,
rejected Christianity and the Jewish religion as well. He was
converted, ostracised, persecuted, thrust into an insane asylum
unjustly, and told he must give up Christ or his wife and child. He
chose Christ. His family soon became Christians and joined him in the
great Jewish mission in Pittsburgh.
In a single night, the mountain floods in India caused the death of
the six children of Rev. D.H. Lee,--only one living a short time to
tell the story. They were all musicians. Out of the awful silence of
that home, Mrs. Lee sent to American papers, a triumphant pean of
praise to God. She was sustained by the power of God, so that she
could kiss, in loving devotion, the hand that smote her. The Lee
Memorial Orphanage, of Calcutta, stands as their monument.
Holy Ann, of Canada, was so profane and such a terror, that this name
was given her in derision. Touched by Christ, she became so sweet a
saint, that all regarded her as holy indeed.
Geo. Long, a denizen of the underworld, a victim of strong drink,
cocaine, opium and morphine, ruined in body and soul, was redeemed and
freed from these desperate vices, and made a successful soul-winner
for Christ.
These are a few of that "multitude that no man can number" who have
been delivered from the power of sin, and have overcome by faith in
Jesus.
If evolution be true it should be no hindrance but a great help. How
many drunkards have been saved by a belief in evolution, and how many
have been greater soul winners by such belief? How many criminals have
been saved by acceptance of the theory? Many have been made criminals,
unbelievers, infidels, agnostics and atheists by it; how many have
been made Christians? Can any one be named who has been made a more
earnest and successful soul winner, or a sweeter saint, by espousal of
the doctrine? If one blank page were set aside for a list of all
victims of sin and vice and crime, who were redeemed by faith in
evolution, the space would be wasted. Is there any comfort in it to
the dying, any help to the living? Would any evolutionist preacher
read to the dying, the so-called classic passage from Darwin, showing
that every living thing on the tangled bank came from one germ without
any assistance from God? Is there any choice passage in all their
books, fit to be read to the dying, or to a man in trouble, or in need
of salvation? Is there anything to put hope in the breast, or inspire
a man to a holy life? Anything to lift up a man sodden with sin, and
redeem him from the fetters that bind him?
To give up the tested power of the gospel and to accept instead, the
worthless guesses of evolution, ruinous in life and powerless in
death, would be a sorry exchange indeed.