Jordan, until to-day, when its converts are baptized in every part of
the world, is so graphically described by Dr. Charles Edward Jefferson,
in his book entitled "Things Fundamental," that I take the liberty of
giving the following extracts:
"Christ in history! There is a fact--face it. According to the New
Testament, Jesus walked along the shores of a little sea known as
the Sea of Galilee. And there He called Peter and Andrew and James
and John and several others to be His followers, and they left all
and followed Him. After they had followed Him they revered Him, and
later on adored and worshipped Him. He left them on their faces,
each man saying, 'My Lord and my God!' All that is in the New
Testament.
"But put the New Testament away. Time passes; history widens; an
unseen Presence walks up and down the shores of a larger sea, the
sea called the Mediterranean--and this unseen Presence calls men to
follow Him ...--another twelve--and these all followed Him and cast
themselves at His feet, saying, in the words of the earlier twelve,
'My Lord and my God!'
"Time passes; history advances; humanity lives its life around the
circle of a larger sea--the Atlantic Ocean. An unseen Presence walks
up and down the shores calling men to follow Him .... --another
twelve--and these leave all and follow Him. We find them on their
faces, each one saying, '_My_ Lord and my God!'
"Time passes; history is widening; humanity is building its
civilization around a still wider sea--we call it the Pacific Ocean.
An unknown Presence moves up and down the shores calling men to
follow Him, and they are doing it. Another company of twelve is
forming. And what took place in Palestine nineteen centuries ago is
taking place again in our own day and under our own eyes."
I conclude by calling attention to the comprehensiveness of Christ's
authority. After His crucifixion and resurrection--in His last
conference with His followers--He announces His boldest claim to
power universal and perpetual (Matt. 28):
... _All_ power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye
therefore, and teach _all_ nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to
observe _all_ things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am
with you _alway_, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Here is a Gospel intended for _every_ human being; here is a code of
morals that is to endure for _all time;_ here is a solution for _every_
problem that can vex a heart or perplex a world, and back of these is
_all power in Heaven and in Earth_.
The word _all_ is used four times in a few sentences. There is nothing
in reserve. We have the final word in religion--Jesus Christ for all,
and for all time--"The same yesterday, and to-day and forever."
IV
THE ORIGIN OF MAN
When the mainspring is broken a watch ceases to be useful as a
timekeeper. A handsome case may make it still an ornament and the parts
may have a market value, but it cannot serve the purpose of a watch.
There is that in each human life that corresponds to the mainspring of a
watch--that which is absolutely necessary if the life is to be what it
should be, a real life and not a mere existence. That necessary thing is
_a belief in God_. Religion is defined as the relation between God and
man, and Tolstoy has described morality as the outward expression of
this inward relationship.
If it be true, as I believe it is, that morality is dependent upon
religion, then religion is not only the most practical thing in the
world, but the first essential. Without religion, viz., a sense of
dependence upon God and reverence for Him, one can play a part in both
the physical and the intellectual world, but he cannot live up to the
possibilities which God has placed within the reach of each human being.
A belief in God is fundamental; upon it rest the influences that control
life.
First, the consciousness of God's presence in the life gives one a sense
of responsibility to the Creator for every thought and word and deed.
Second, prayer rests upon a belief in God; communion with the Creator
in the expression of gratitude and in pleas for guidance powerfully
influences man.
Third, belief in a personal immortality rests upon faith in God; the
inward restraint that one finds in a faith that looks forward to a
future life with its rewards and punishments, makes outward restraint
less necessary. Man is weak enough in hours of temptation, even when he
is fortified by the conviction that this life is but a small arc of
an infinite circle; his power of resistance is greatly impaired if he
accepts the doctrine that conscious existence terminates with death.
Fourth, the spirit of brotherhood rests on a belief in God. We trace our
relationship to our fellowmen through the Creator, the Common Parent of
us all.
Fifth, belief in the Bible depends upon a belief in God. Jehovah comes
first; His word comes afterward. There can be no inspiration without a
Heavenly Father to inspire.
Sixth, belief in God is also necessary to a belief in Christ; the Son
could not have revealed the Father to man according to any atheistic
theory. And so with all other Christian doctrines: they rest upon a
belief in God.
If belief in God is necessary to the beliefs enumerated, then it follows
logically that anything that weakens belief in God weakens man, and, to
the extent that it impairs belief in God, reduces his power to measure
up to his opportunities and responsibilities. If there is at work in the
world to-day anything that tends to break this mainspring, it is the
duty of the moral, as well as the Christian, world to combat this
influence in every possible way.
I believe there is such a menace to fundamental morality. The hypothesis
to which the name of Darwin has been given--the hypothesis that links
man to the lower forms of life and makes him a lineal descendant of the
brute--is obscuring God and weakening all the virtues that rest upon the
religious tie between God and man. Passing over, for the present, all
other phases of evolution and considering only that part of the system
which robs man of the dignity conferred upon him by separate creation,
when God breathed into him the breath of life and he became the first
man, I venture to call attention to the demoralizing influence exerted
by this doctrine.
If we accept the Bible as true we have no difficulty in determining the
origin of man. In the first chapter of Genesis we read that God, after
creating all other things, said, "Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male
and female created he them."
The materialist has always rejected the Bible account of Creation and,
during the last half century, the Darwinian doctrine has been the means
of shaking the faith of millions. It is important that man should have
a correct understanding of his line of descent. Huxley calls it the
"question of questions" for mankind. He says: "The problem which
underlies all others, and is more interesting than any other--is the
ascertainment of the place which man occupies in nature and of his
relation to the universe of things. Whence our race has come, what are
the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power over us, to
what goal are we tending, are the problems which present themselves anew
with undiminished interest to every man born in the world."
The materialists deny the existence of God and seek to explain man's
presence upon the earth without a creative act. They go back from man to
the animals, and from one form of life to another until they come to the
first germ of life; there they divide into two schools, some believing
that the first germ of life came from another planet, others holding
that it was the result of spontaneous generation. One school answers
the arguments advanced by the other and, as they cannot agree with each
other, I am not compelled to agree with either.
If it were necessary to accept one of these theories I would prefer the
first; for, if we can chase the germ of life off of this planet and out
into space, we can guess the rest of the way and no one can contradict
us. But, if we accept the doctrine of spontaneous generation we will
have to spend our time explaining why spontaneous generation ceased to
act after the first germ of life was created. It is not necessary to pay
much attention to any theory that boldly eliminates God; it does not
deceive many. The mind revolts at the idea of spontaneous generation; in
all the researches of the ages no scientist has found a single instance
of life that was not begotten by life. The materialist has nothing but
imagination to build upon; he cannot hope for company or encouragement.
But the Darwinian doctrine is more dangerous because more deceptive. It
_permits_ one to believe in a God, but puts the creative act so far away
that reverence for the Creator--even belief in Him--is likely to be
lost.
Before commenting on the Darwinian hypothesis let me refer you to the
language of its author as it applies to man. On page 180 of "Descent of
Man" (Hurst & Company, Edition 1874), Darwin says: "Our most ancient
progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata, at which we are able to
obtain an obscure glance, apparently consisted of a group of marine
animals, resembling the larvae of the existing Ascidians." Then he
suggests a line of descent leading to the monkey. And he does not even
permit us to indulge in a patriotic pride of ancestry; instead of
letting us descend from American monkeys, he connects us with the
European branch of the monkey family.
It will be noted, first, that he begins the summary with the word
"apparently," which the Standard Dictionary defines: "as judged by
appearances, without passing upon its reality." His second sentence
(following the sentence quoted) turns upon the word "probably," which is
defined: "as far as the evidence shows, presumably, likely." His works
are full of words indicating uncertainty. The phrase "we may; well
suppose," occurs over eight hundred times in his two principal works.
(See _Herald & Presbyter_, November 22, 1914.) The eminent scientist is
guessing.
After locating our gorilla and chimpanzee ancestors in Africa, he
concludes that "it is useless to speculate on this subject." If the
uselessness of speculation had occurred to him at the beginning of his
investigation he might have escaped responsibility for shaking the faith
of two generations by his guessing on the whole subject of biology.
If we could divide the human race into two distinct groups we might
allow evolutionists to worship brutes as ancestors but they insist on
connecting all mankind with the jungle. We have a right to protect our
family tree.
Having given Darwin's conclusions as to man's ancestry, I shall quote
him to prove that his hypothesis is not only groundless, but absurd and
harmful to society. It is groundless because there is not a single fact
in the universe that can be cited to prove that man is descended from
the lower animals. Darwin does not use facts; he uses conclusions drawn
from similarities. He builds upon presumptions, probabilities and
inferences, and asks the acceptance of his hypothesis "notwithstanding
the fact that connecting links have not hitherto been discovered" (page
162). He advances an hypothesis which, if true, would find support on
every foot of the earth's surface, but which, as a matter of fact, finds
support nowhere. There are myriads of living creatures about us, from
insects too small to be seen with the naked eye to the largest mammals,
and, yet, not one is in transition from one species to another; every
one is perfect. It is strange that slight similarities could make him
ignore gigantic differences. The remains of nearly one hundred species
of vertebrate life have been found in the rocks, of which more than
one-half are found living to-day, and none of the survivors show
material change. The word hypothesis is a synonym used by scientists for
the word guess; it is more dignified in sound and more imposing to the
sight, but it has the same meaning as the old-fashioned, every-day
word, guess. If Darwin had described his doctrine as a guess instead of
calling it an hypothesis, it would not have lived a year.[1]
[Footnote 1: Dr. Etheridge, Fossiologist of the British Museum, says:
"Nine-tenths of the talk of Evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded
on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of
proofs of the utter falsity of their views."
Prof. Beale, of King's College, London, says: "In support of all
naturalistic conjectures concerning man's origin, there is not at this
time a shadow of scientific evidence."
Prof. Fleischmann, of Erlangen, says: "The Darwinian theory has in the
realms of Nature not a single fact to confirm it. It is not the result
of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination."
The January issue of "Science," 1922, contains a speech delivered at
Toronto last December by Prof. William Bateson of London before the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. He says that
science has faith in evolution but doubts as to the origin of species.]
Probably nothing impresses Darwin more than the fact that at an early
stage the foetus of a child cannot be distinguished from the foetus of
an ape, but why should such a similarity in the beginning impress him
more than the difference at birth and the immeasurable gulf between the
two at forty? If science cannot detect a difference, _known to exist_,
between the foetus of an ape and the foetus of a child, it should
not ask us to substitute the inferences, the presumptions and the
probabilities of science for the word of God.
Science has rendered invaluable service to society; her achievements are
innumerable--and the hypotheses of scientists should be considered with
an open mind. Their theories should be carefully examined and their
arguments fairly weighed, but the scientist cannot compel acceptance
of any argument he advances, except as, judged upon its merits, it is
convincing. Man is infinitely more than science; science, as well as
the Sabbath, was made for man. It must be remembered, also, that all
sciences are not of equal importance. Tolstoy insists that the science
of "How to Live" is more important than any other science, and is this
not true? It is better to trust in the Rock of Ages, than to know the
age of the rocks; it is better for one to know that he is close to the
Heavenly Father, than to know how far the stars in the heavens are
apart. And is it not just as important that the scientists who deal with
matter should respect the scientists who deal with spiritual things,
as that the latter should respect the former? If it be true, as Paul
declares, that "the things that are seen are temporal" while "the things
that are unseen are eternal," why should those who deal with temporal
things think themselves superior to those who deal with the things that
are eternal? Why should the Bible, which the centuries have not been
able to shake, be discarded for scientific works that have to be revised
and corrected every few years? The preference should be given to the
Bible.
The two lines of work are parallel. There should be no conflict between
the discoverers of _real_ truths, because real truths do not conflict.
Every truth harmonizes with every other truth, but why should an
hypothesis, suggested by a scientist, be accepted as true until its
truth is established? Science should be the last to make such a demand
because science to be truly science is classified knowledge; it is
the explanation of facts. Tested by this definition, Darwinism is not
science at all; it is guesses strung together. There is more science in
the twenty-fourth verse of the first chapter of Genesis (And God said,
let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and
creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so.)
than in all that Darwin wrote.
It is no light matter to impeach the veracity of the Scriptures in
order to accept, not a truth--not even a theory--but a mere hypothesis.
Professor Huxley says, "There is no fault to be found with Darwin's
method, but it is another thing whether he has fulfilled all the
conditions imposed by that method. Is it satisfactorily proved that
species may be originated by selection? That none of the phenomena
exhibited by the species are inconsistent with the origin of the species
in this way? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative,
Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the ranks of hypothesis into that of
theories; but so long as the evidence adduced falls short of enforcing
that affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new doctrine must be
content to remain among the former--an extremely valuable, and in the
highest degree probable, doctrine; indeed the only extant hypothesis
which is worth anything in a scientific point of view; but still a
hypothesis, and not a theory of species." "After much consideration,"
he adds, "and assuredly with no bias against Darwin's views, it is our
clear conviction that, as the evidence now stands, it is not absolutely
proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited
by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether
artificial or natural."
But Darwin is absurd as well as groundless. He announces two laws,
which, in his judgment, explain the development of man from the lowest
form of animal life, viz., natural selection and sexual selection. The
latter has been abandoned by the modern believers in evolution, but
two illustrations, taken from Darwin's "Descent of Man," will show his
unreliability as a guide to the young. On page 587 of the 1874 edition,
he tries to explain man's superior mental strength (a proposition more
difficult to defend to-day than in Darwin's time). His theory is that,
"the struggle between the males for the possession of the females"
helped to develop the male mind and that this superior strength was
transmitted by males to their male offspring.
After having shown, to his own satisfaction, how sexual selection would
account for the (supposed) greater strength of the male mind, he turns
his attention to another question, namely, how did man become a hairless
animal? This he accounts for also by sexual selection--the females
preferred the males with the least hair (page 624). In a footnote on
page 625 he says that this view has been harshly criticized. "Hardly any
view advanced in this work," he says, "has met with so much disfavour."
A comment and a question: First, Unless the brute females were very
different from the females as we know them, they would not have agreed
in taste. Some would "probably" have preferred males with less hair,
others, "we may well suppose," would have preferred males with more
hair. Those with more hair would naturally be the stronger because
better able to resist the weather. But, second, how could the males have
strengthened their minds by fighting for the females if, at the same
time, the females were breeding the hair off by selecting the males? Or,
did the males select for three years and then allow the females to do
the selecting during leap year?
But, worse yet, in a later edition published by L.A. Burt Company, a
"supplemental note" is added to discuss two letters which he thought
supported the idea that sexual selection transformed the hairy animal
into the hairless man. Darwin's correspondent (page 710) reports that
a mandril seemed to be proud of a bare spot. Can anything be less
scientific than trying to guess what an animal is thinking about? It
would seem that this also was a subject about which it was "useless to
speculate."
While on this subject it may be worth while to call your attention to
other fantastic imaginings of which those are guilty who reject the
Bible and enter the field of speculation--fiction surpassing anything to
be found in the Arabian Nights. If one accepts the Scriptural account of
the creation, he can credit God with the working of miracles and with
the doing of many things that man cannot understand. The evolutionist,
however, having substituted what he imagines to be a universal law for
separate acts of creation must explain everything. The evolutionist,
not to go back farther than life just now, begins with one or a few
invisible germs of life on the planet and imagines that these invisible
germs have, by the operation of what they call "resident forces,"
unaided from without, developed into all that we see to-day. They cannot
in a lifetime explain the things that have to be explained, if their
hypothesis is accepted--a useless waste of time even if explanation were
possible.
Take the eye, for instance; believing in the Mosaic account, I believe
that God made the eyes when He made man--not only made the eyes but
carved out the caverns in the skull in which they hang. It is easy for
the believer in the Bible to explain the eyes, because he believes in a
God who can do all things and, according to the Bible, did create man as
a part of a divine plan.
But how does the evolutionist explain the eye when he leaves God out?
Here is the only guess that I have seen--if you find any others I
shall be glad to know of them, as I am collecting the guesses of the
evolutionists. The evolutionist guesses that there was a time when eyes
were unknown--that is a necessary part of the hypothesis. And since
the eye is a universal possession among living things the evolutionist
guesses that it came into being--not by design or by act of God--but
just happened, and how did it happen? I will give you the guess--a piece
of pigment, or, as some say, a freckle appeared upon the skin of an
animal that had no eyes. This piece of pigment or freckle converged the
rays of the sun upon that spot and when the little animal felt the
heat on that spot it turned the spot to the sun to get more heat. The
increased heat irritated the skin--so the evolutionists guess, and a
nerve came there and out of the nerve came the eye! Can you beat it? But
this only accounts for one eye; there must have been another piece of
pigment or freckle soon afterward and just in the right place in order
to give the animal two eyes.
And, according to the evolutionist, there was a time when animals had no
legs, and so the leg came by accident. How? Well, the guess is that a
little animal without legs was wiggling along on its belly one day when
it discovered a wart--it just happened so--and it was in the right place
to be used to aid it in locomotion; so, it came to depend upon the wart,
and use finally developed it into a leg. And then another wart and
another leg, at the proper time--by accident--and accidentally in the
proper place. Is it not astonishing that any person intelligent enough
to teach school would talk such tommyrot to students and look serious
while doing so?
And yet I read only a few weeks ago, on page 124 of a little book
recently issued by a prominent New York minister, the following:
"Man has grown up in this universe gradually developing his powers and
functions as responses to his environment. If he has _eyes_, so the
_biologists_ assure us, it is because _light waves played upon the skin_
and eyes came out in answer; if he has _ears_ it is because the _air
waves_ were there first and the ears came out to hear. Man never yet,
_according to the evolutionist_, has developed any power save as a
reality called it into being. There would be no fins if there were no
water, no wings if there were no air, no legs if there were no land."