Evolution.

A few Facts Which so Against Its Feasibility.

Sir,—Though evolution during the page 26 different ages of the world has appeared in different phases, its principle has been always the same. About fifty years ago it appeared in a new garb, as it is held by the Atheists, Pantheists, and Rationalists, which latter two are as closely interwoven as a quick hedge, so that it is impossible to discern where Rationalism ends and Pantheism begins. The leaders of these latter two we find in Hegel, Feuerbach, Shelling, Strauss, Emerson, Du Perre, &c. Though their modus operandi, how the creature becomes perfected in the deity, differs slightly from that of the old Egyptians, the Hindoos, and the Greeks, yet when completed the result is in all cases the same, i.e., man finally became merged into the deity, he becomes a god great or small. All these authors, though differing in detail, deny all revealed religion as contained in the Bible; and the only foundation they base their faith upon is the immortal soul. For instance, the immortal soul is every man's divine inspiration. So that Minos, Moses, David Owen, Strauss, and Simon Peter, are all alike inspired by God, their immortal souls: and that this inspiration is not limited to any sect or age, but is as wide as the world and as common as God." And may I add, as diversified as Joseph's coat of many colors, and this all by the same and one god who contradicts himself a thousand times. But what of that. For they speak thus of the immortal soul, "The immortal souls of men form so many parts or particles of the divinity, and consequently every living man is an incarnation of the deity." Emerson's theme from beginning to end is, "The soul, the immortal soul, the particle of divinity." And this he desires everywhere to be preached, "As the only grand truth, and the only means by which the world is to be regenerated." According to their view Man is not in need of any extreme revelation;" because "every man is revelation to himself, by reason of indwelling particle of divinity calm immortal soul." They compare mortal souls "to the waves of [unclear: the] Every man, every immortal soul, is wave, all the waves form the [unclear: sea,] this whole sea is God." Emersona "I stand here to say, let [unclear: us] ship the mighty transcendent [unclear: i] mortal soul, for divinity is [unclear: the] and soul is divinity: here we see the God-like principle human immortal souls. Loot Moses, at Socrates, at Jesus [unclear: Chr] Mahomet, Saul of Tarsus, &c. [unclear: The] souls of these men were their [unclear: reve] tions; out of their God-created soul they did it all: and this we call revelation." Carlyle says, "[unclear: Every] creed is good' and orthodox; [unclear: provied] a man believes it honestly and [unclear: real] practises it. God and the [unclear: universe] are but the products of the [unclear: grimmortal] soul, and are only its [unclear: mir] "Now, these innumerable particle immortal souls, which form this [unclear: G] i.e., the creation of the universe," [unclear: th] describe in this manner, "The [unclear: creation] is not a free act, but an [unclear: inevit] necessity." As Hegel says," God (immortal souls) did not [unclear: create] world, but he is perpetually create it." An abstract of the theory of I immortal soul as set forth by the [unclear: great] said modern savans, or rather [unclear: paga] amounts to this. The greater the philosopher, hero, or statesman, the [unclear: greater] measure of divinity (immortal [unclear: so] he possesses, and if less of a philospher, &c., the measure of Divinify him is also in proportion less,—which in plain English means, that man already a greater or lesser [unclear: god.] a the old pagan mythology, as described before, only with this marked differences page 27 that our modern Platonians claim to be gods already while yet in the flesh, while their ancient pagan friends contented themselves with being deified after death, and expected to be made gods, according to their different ranks. Have these modern Christian pagans thrown any more light on the origin, or by what means their so-much feasted immortal souls came into existence, than their pagan friends? We may search in vain through the Mens of big volumes they have written on this subject without obtaining one whit more information beyond what a pagan mythology offers us on the origin of the soul, and their gods, viz., that all immortal souls existed without a god from all eternity, and But man by an unaccountable chance same into existence, became incorporated by the soul, and thus became god: of which the most clever and cunning became the chief god, called Jupiter. Here then we have the proof, how men in all ages have groped like Moles in the dark,—the pagans of former times in the absence of a revealed religion, and the modern pagans after rejecting revealed religion are left in like darkness to grope in broad day-light, in the vanity of their own conceits, like owls when the midday sun has blinded their eyes, so that they cannot, see. And thus a traditional Christian theology, or rather an aphronology, stand on the same level of ignorance as to the knowledge of God and the origin of man, both as to his physiical and moral nature. We will now proceed to show what light revealed religion, unalloyed by a pagan mythology, or the traditional aphronology, called theology, throws upon the nature of the animal creation at whose head man stands highest. And how variously their organizations are required perform the multifarious functions as witnessed in the respective species: and that with an unchangeable uniformity. In that old sacred book, the Pentateuch, we have the earliest and fullest account, not only of the origin of man and his nature, but also of the lower creatures. There we find man's physical state of existence and nonexistence, that is death, described in the most perfect manner compatible with reason and the researches of the sciences: which latter in every instance more and more verify the fact that man and the rest of the animal creation must have been made by an all-wise and omnipotent Creator, who alone by design could construct the complicated and delicate organizations by which these functions are performed. And these have only of late been begun to be understood. Phrenology, which 50 years ago was cried down as a rampant heresy, is now generally acknowledged by scientific men as corroborating the testimony of the Bible that man's physical organization of the brain (which in the lower creature is wanting) is as necessary to his moral capacity as a rational being, to reason and think, as the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, and the hands to work with. While on the other hand an exclusive theological philosophy, apart from the Bible, and from scientific investigation, has rather mystified man's nature instead of elucidating one single fact beyond what has been revealed to us in the Bible. In Gen. 20-30, we find the creation of all living beings described in this manner: "Let the waters bring forth abundantly living souls (or things with living souls), and flying things (birds) above the earth under the firmament of heaven." Then, in the 21st verse it is said, "And God made great fishes, and all living souls that move, which the waters Drought forth abundantly page 28 according to their species, and all flying birds according to their species." Now, if this statement that the waters "brought forth" fishes and birds stood absolute, without its being said that God made them, there would indeed be a prima facie case made out for evolution, yet still so as by the commanding, the fiat of the Lord, "Let the waters bring forth," and this only for the time being, to produce the first species, and not as an imperative law for all future times. And we read precisely the same-concerning the rest of the animal creation; only with this difference, that God said, "Let the earth bring forth living souls according to their species, animals, reptiles, and the beasts of the earth." In a supplementary explanation in regard to these and their production, we read in chap. ii. 19, that "God formed, or moulded out of the ground of the earth, all the animals of the earth, and all the birds under heaven." Will any one in his right senses assert that by this description how they were produced, the waters and the earth by their own law of evolution brought forth these creatures independent of the command of God, and independent of his, as it is said, making or moulding them? We do not however lay any stress on the verb "formed, or moulded," that it should of necessity be literally understood (that God with hands moulded each creature into its shape) as some silly theologians insist upon. It is a very suitable expression to convey some sort of an idea to the Israelites so that by the moulding of bricks, which for years they had been forced to do, they might by such a typical description be enabled to comprehend in some measure the, to them, otherwise incomprehensible act of the creation. For men of an enlightened mind, the said "formed," to take it literally, is into highest degree derogatory [unclear: to] omnipotent creative power [unclear: of] who by his mere word can bring things to pass. Now, had the spirit whose inspiration Moses [unclear: wrote,] that the animal creatures were na by the process of evolution, he would, undoubtedly have so expressed seeing that it would be easier understand it in that way, by states that after the "waters had brought forth living souls," these [unclear: aqu] creatures then brought forth [unclear: th] reptiles; these latter again the best of the field, these the birds of the [unclear: a] these the animals, and the animal brought forth men. Would [unclear: not] be easy enough for every [unclear: chili] understand? But Moses did not narrate it, and why not? I know no other reason than this: had he did so, he knew it would not be true. As so, the pretext adduced by [unclear: Evo] tionists, "that God had to [unclear: desc] the creation to men who [unclear: were] but children, and on that [unclear: acc] unable to understand it as [unclear: descri] on the principle of evolution," [unclear: fall] itself to the ground. And again, must not lose sight of the [unclear: signifi] fact, as narrated in the process of [unclear: creation,] that God created [unclear: the] creatures by different acts perform in their completion, viz., [unclear: after] waters had brought forth [unclear: souls,] made them then into the respected species of aquatic and volatic creature And after the earth had brought for living souls (the beasts) he then [unclear: for] or moulded them, into their respected species, which, according to evolution would have to mean that God form the successive species—made from the other.

The last act of the [unclear: omnipot] Creator was to create man, [unclear: and] him was finished all this globe require page 29 [unclear: the] form of living beings. And [unclear: how] man produced? Did God say, Let the waters or the earth bring forth man, as he said in regard to the other features? Or did he say, Let the animals bring forth man? Nothing of the kind. And yet this would have been the most proper mode of describir the origin of man for a community of children, as Evolutionists call the Israelites, to make them comprehend now man was produced by evolution. But instead of that we read, that "God formed or moulded the man from out fee ground of the earth." Thus was man made by a procedure differing from all the former creatures. And being God called man, although he as yet was nothing more than a lifeless figure lying motionless on the ground. And it was on this lifeless man that God had to perform another act of his creative energy, to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, in order that the dead man might become a living man, a living soul: just such a living soul like all the other creatures were which the waters and the earth and brought forth as living souls, and which he had formed afterward into their respective species. Then we read again that God made man in his own image, or likeness. In what respect? In his physical organization, or shape? By no means; for God is a spirit without any material parts. So that the making him in his likeness can only mean, like in his moral nature or attributes. But by what act of creation was man made like God in his moral nature, attributes, or capacity? By formation, or by the breathing of the breath of life into him? Not by the one or the other simply, but by both combined, as we will show presently his purpose we have to examine what this breath of life is, and his physical organization of the brains, not found in the beast, which former acting on the latter produces moral capacity. Now this breath of life by which man became a living soul, (not immortal soul) is the breath of God: everywhere through the Bible identical with the spirit of God: they are one and the same. As we read, "If God shall gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together." By this it follows, that all the lower creatures have their life, i.e., their souls, by the same spirit and breath of the Lord, just as man. By it they and we all live; and without it they and we all die alike. This is the air we live and exist in. Exclude it from man, and he dies; exclude it from the beasts, and they die also. Science again has verified what the Bible says, "If God shall gather to himself his spirit and his breath all flesh shall perish together." So that man in his physical nature has no pre-eminence above the beast either in life or death. But his pre-eminence consists in his moral nature or capacity, in that God has provided him with portions of his organization, the brain, which the beasts have not; by means of which when the breath of God acts upon it the moral capacity or rational mind is produced in him by which man is put in a state of consciousness of right and wrong, judgment, reason, discerning, &c., and thus as a rational being having the free exercise of his will, he becomes therefore accountable for his actions to his maker. And that the breath of life cannot produce these moral faculties without the physical organization of the brain, it is a verified and acknowledged fact that these latter are as much required to produce them as the sound muscles, sinews, and the structure of a joint, without which there is neither strength nor move- page 30 ment. A perfectly sound organization is required for the eye to see with, and the ear to hear with, and yet are they dependent for these faculties on the sound and perfect organization of the brain, to produce hearing and sight. If these parts of the brain which are necessary for their production receive a hurt, their senses become defective; if destroyed, total blindness and deafness follow as a consequence. Thus we see, that the moral capacity of man is an absurdity, without having the necessary organization of the brain upon which by the action of the spirit of life his reasoning, and consequently his moral faculty, is produced, which in the lower creatures in most species are wholly wanting, and in others contained but in a very limited degree; while in the absence thereof they are supplied with instinct. And as instinct is not consisting of free will to be regulated by reasoning faculties, they are under no obligation of responsibility like man. These two then together, the physical organization of the brain, and the spirit of life of God, produce man's moral nature or capacity. This we will further illustrate. The lower creatures by their innate instinct abstain from such food, drink, exercise, &c., as would cause sickness or death to them. But man, not possessing this instinct, has to rely on, and has his safeguard for the prevention of these, in his reasoning faculties. In the beast these instincts are almost if not wholly perfect at birth; while in man the reasoning faculties are still at! birth, yet in embryo, and require development, and till he has attained it, he requires the care, surveillance and guidance of those who have attained the faculty by development to keep him from being hurt by that of which he is as yet in ignorance. And being developed, man by his free will often transgresses the law reason, merely for the gratificatisi his animal propensities; knowing the time, as does the [unclear: glutton,] drunkard, the debauchee, that [unclear: soon] or later their excesses will bring [unclear: up] them sickness and death—the retribution of a broken law—and that are themselves the cause of shorten their lives by many years, in fact they are committing suicide. [unclear: Man,] rational and probatory being, [unclear: has] with all his development and advance state of civilization advanced [unclear: one] beyond our first parents in [unclear: proba] Eden. What God said to! [unclear: Cain,] still says to all men. Is it [unclear: not] "If thudo well, art thou not acceptable but if evil, sin lays at the door the lust thereof is under thy [unclear: pow] and thou shalt rule over it." [unclear: A] who as the first rational [unclear: being,] his life upon condition of obedience not complying with the command rule over it," disobeyed, [unclear: tand] forfeited it to himself as well as far race. True, God respited his life many years, but at last he exacted sentence of death, and [unclear: Adam] We have shown already [unclear: that] highest degree of perfection [unclear: mar] striven to attain to, is re-absorption into the deity, or, as the Grecian Christian pagans express it, to been gods. And this they think evolution has to work out for them—for advocates assert that this is the [unclear: d] aim of it, to develope a being from matter that has the smallest degree life into the most perfect moral imaginable, and which they call, is attained in, immortality, fri perceive everywhere that [unclear: this] object has totally failed; for instead bringing him nearer to the desired of perfection, evolution has [unclear: left] helpless victim to death. If men the creatures of the law of evolution page 31 allowing as most men do that this law was set in motion and obtained its working power from the Almighty. Being whom the Bible calls God, it would of necessity follow that it would be as immutable in its workings as other law by which the universe governed. And there could exist no anomaly in that one law of evolution from the thousands of other laws which are always found to work normally in producing the effect Signed by the lawgiver. So that the law of evolution in regard to man and his development to perfection is a total failure. And as to man's moral nature or capacity, how do we find the law evolution at work in its progress the lowest to the highest creature to man? It is a total abortion. For, if the Creator works in the production She animal creation by fixed laws of evolution, how then is it that these laws, like the rest of the immutable laws of the universe, are not normal? It the law by which evolution is said to work was like the others, it would show its results by the uniform progress in the reasoning faculties, and as some assert in the moral capacity, progressing from the lower to the higher animal to man. But experience shows just the contrary. The dog, the cow, the horse, &c., all exhibit to a limited reasoning faculties, but the ape, which evolutionists assert that be is the last connecting link between them and man, is totally devoid of lesson.

Evolutionists all rant about an inmate immortality which man is said a possess, and some even dream that the beasts possess it alike with man. And yet they have not advanced one B into the light, nor given us any better convincing information on the subject from whence they obtained this immortality, than the Hindoos, Egyptians, Greeks, the Pantheists, and the Atheists. All the one-sided and isolated hints and suggestions of analogy, all the declamations against the Bible narrative of the creation, only serve to bewilder man, instead of convincing him one whit. But let us return to the narrative of the Pentateuch of the creation, and let us examine whether man was made immortal? Theophilus of Antioch put the question, "Was Adam created with a mortal or immortal nature?" and his reply is, "Neither the one nor the other, but he was fitted for either, in order that he might receive immortality as a reward." The same as I said, that man was created a probatory being. Had he stood his trial of probation, immortality would no doubt have been his reward. Now when 'God saw that every thing he had made was very good," man must have been a creature "very good," for the state of his probation, to attain immortality, yet was he not immortal, as I will show further on. Man was very good just so far as his position as husband, father, and provider required it; he was put in a capacity by his maker to fulfil all duties in his position required of him, just like a young man who has finished his education and has been instructed in all the requisites for his future career, and is put in possession of an estate, by the management of which his moral culture is put to the test. If he acts rationally obeying the dictates of his moral nature, and making good use of the attainments' he has acquired by education, thirty years hence he will be a proved, and wise, and as people call it, a perfect man. But if he lets his animal nature unrestrained predominate, his estate will soon be squandered, and he himself a wreck in health, cut down by death many years before his time. Such was page 32 Adam. Like a very good and staunch ship sent to sea, with a valuable cargo, the captain and officers perfectly instructed to navigate her, and all the crew practical men to work her, and ensure a safe passage. But this very good and noble ship is wrecked. What caused her to become a wreck? There was no fault in her rigging, no flaw in her hull, the builder made her very good and perfect for many voyages, she encountered no storm, but such as she was fit to stand, twice as much, and yet she became a wreck. She put to sea all right, just like Adam on his voyage for the port of immortality. All goes on well for some time. But by and by there is something wrong on her, her sails are flapping even in fair wind; captain and officers seem unfit for their duty required for the safe navigation of the ship, their reasoning faculties are impaired by grog. They and the crew stagger and reel about worse than their ship, till they come in sight of the coast of Australia. It happens to be Christmas-day, and the bumper has to be drunk—and that for a week, while all that time the good ship has to navigate herself, and having no brains, she makes for every point of the compass, till a southerly wind drives her on a sunken rock, though well marked on the map; but compass and map cannot direct the ship, and neither can the captain nor officers, grog has rendered them imbeciles, they are victims of evil devices, and would not rule over them; the good ship strikes, and all but a few are swallowed by death. Was this the builder's fault? the ship was very good and staunch, well provided with maps and instruments, well manned; and yet she foundered for want of judgment and discipline, for want of reason which they sold for the luxury of indulgence, and their penalty was death. Such was Adam, and such [unclear: by] are all his sons to this day: [unclear: he] will not obey the law of God, [unclear: nor] law of reason—to them the was disobedience to all alike [unclear: is]

Thus man fell from life [unclear: to] But some moden savans, [unclear: among] is Mr Fitchett, tell us [unclear: unblushi] that man by transgression did fall. But that, what theology calk fall of man, in reality means thereby he attained to his [unclear: moral] city." And he sums it up thus, [unclear: lution] teaches that moral capacity attained by development. [unclear: The] admits that it was not [unclear: an] endowment, and adds that, having [unclear: tained] it, man fell. Contradictory there is none." Good God! It's amount of moral capacity man have attained to by all the succession transgressions from Adam to out if so be that man by disobeying command attained it, then man transgressed quite enough to him perfect long ago! But [unclear: what] the Bible inform us? It says man's disobedience and transgress was the cause of man's death, and only his, but death to all his posters. Just open your eyes, reader, and at the history beginning at [unclear: Adj] his first-born son was a [unclear: frat] Open your eyes, and behold the lions of dead bodies floating on waters of the flood—the consequence of transgression. Look at [unclear: Sodo] Gomorrha, the inhabitants of [unclear: the] for their disobedience, God destroy them by fire from [unclear: heaven.] what do you behold on Calvary it not that God's own Son by disobedience was nailed to the Open your eyes wide, reader, and over the history of the world, a far antiquity. Are you able to the wars, the battles, that have fought? are you able to count page 33 millions slain, the millions maimed, the millions made miserable? Look into the dark dungeons of the inquisition, behold the horrors of the rake, the stake, the agony of the victims, the fiendish laugh of their tormentors! Do you think to find therein the so-much boasted development of man's moral nature by evolution? Or do you find it in the lust markets of Paris, London, &c., or in the gambling bells of the continent, or in the gamblings on the Stock-exchanges of London and Paris—in the 50,000 yearly suicides—or in the religious hypocrisy, and spiritual wickedness of the day? Are these the results of the moral mature or capacity man has attained evolution? if so, God save us from And what are we to think of the never-before-heard-of enormous preparations for war, the breechloaders, rifled cannons, ironclads, twenty-five millions of men drilling to be ready at a moment's notice to cut each other's throats? Are they the indications of Redevelopment of man's moral capacity being on the eve of perfection? If they mean anything, they indicate that the human race, as concerns moral development by evolution, has proved to be a total failure—that it is in abortion—a lie.

But let us return to the Bible, the only book from which we can learn or hether man was made a being to possess innate immortality or not? We have shown already that when God made the lower creatures, they are called "living souls." But when God made man, he did not call him a living soul, but called him man, even when he was yet a dead man. But after he had breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, the dead man then became a living soul, just such a living soul as other creatures had been made by him at once. So that the breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, did not make man immortal any more than the other creatures, who were made living souls direct, who lived as living souls by the same breath and spirit of God. Again, God did not form man of any other substance than he formed the animals, i.e., out of the ground of the earth. No, he did not form man out of soul, or spirit; but out of the same sort of ground as the other animals, and man became a living soul by the same breath or spirit by which all the other creatures have their life (souls). And after man's transgression, when God pronounced the sentence of death on him, he still calls man "dust from which he was taken, and to which he would return." And why did God after his transgression drive man out of the garden of Eden? for no other purpose," lest man should put forth his hand, and take also of the fruit of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever," to prevent man from becoming immortal. For we have shown that the breath of life and the spirit of God are not the man, but only the cause of his life, his soul—the same as in every other creature. From whence, then, and at what time of his life, did man receive his immortality which a fool's theology asserts that he possesses? Though God intended man to become immortal, it was only on his part to be obtained on condition of obedience. And though man by disobedience brought death upon himself and on his race, God in his mercy has not foreclosed the offered immortality from man, in that ho devised the means by which he accepted the death of the mediator, Christ, to die vicariously for man, and thus the prospective immortality is still as available to man, through faith in Christ, as it was to Adam. Christ was foreshadowed to our first parents under page 34 the allegorical name of "he who should crush the (allegorical) serpent's head," i.e., sin and death, as the consequences of the desires, cogitations, &c., of Eve. The whole narrative of the creation is given to man in an allegorical or idealized history: and yet this history is as true as if it was a literal narrative. This has puzzled, no doubt, all traditional theologians. For instance, the serpent with them must needs mean a literal orthodox devil. But as it is against facts that in every respect it could mean a literal serpent, they have made a jumble of it, like all their traditional jumbles, out of which they are unable to extricate themselves. Let us lift up the magical wand which covers their jumble. They all insist that it was a literal serpent that was spoken of; yet none will assert that this literal serpent eats earth or talks. And when it is said that the serpent's head is to be crushed, presently they say, "O! the head is a figure." So that, after all, their real literal serpent has but a figurative head: which in turn has to be crushed by a figurative heel. Can absurdities go further? Figuratively understood, it is all plain and rational. The lusts, cogitations, and desires of Eve, are the whisperings of her own mind, the figurative serpent said to have spoken; these brought forth sin, and sin death; death gnaws and eats up man's life like [earth, till he becomes earth. This explains why the serpent is said to eat earth; and as a serpent cannot exist and live with the head crushed, which serpent we later find represented under the figurative name of Satan, and diabolos, and as all these figurative names by which moral evil is indicated will be crushed entirely when the last of the wicked shall be destroyed in the lake of fire, sin,' which is the cause of all pain, of weeping, and wailing, and death, shall be no more, and moral evil found no more, and all those who found worthy to receive immortal shall praise the Lord, [unclear: neither] there be any more pain, [unclear: curse,] death, and God shall be all, and [unclear: in] This is the crushing of the [unclear: serp] head. And concerning [unclear: this] apostolic Father Barnabas says in letter, "The day shall come when things shall perish with the [unclear: evil] when every one who chooses of things than the judgments of [unclear: the] shall be destroyed with his word. And Irenaeus says, "At the end time Christ shall come to [unclear: do] with all evil (with the serpent and diabolos) and to reconcile all the in order that there may be [unclear: an] all infirmities." It is then [unclear: that] receives his promised immoral but it is man without sin, and [unclear: He] to receive his sinless [unclear: nature] immortality as a free gift [unclear: from] after having striven in [unclear: Adam'] flesh to obtain it through the gross. God by faith and [unclear: well-doing.] the height of all absurdity, [unclear: the] est arrogance of man, only worthy fool's theology, for man [unclear: in] sin's flesh to boast of an immortality. It would be only eternal curse to man. God is only immortal, because he is the holy, Being. And for man [unclear: to] to immortality he has of necessity become holy, just, &c. Man' [unclear: s] nature has to be created anew, and image of God which Adam lost transgression, has to be restored him before he is a fit candidates prospective immortality. The ship, the moral nature, wrecked Adam, has to be rebuilt ([unclear: created] by Christ, the crusher of [unclear: the] head. Man thus becoming a creature, through his faith, and, obedience to his [unclear: (Christ's)] page 35 has the assurance of the gospel tidings, his salvation from death, which he receives as a free gift of God, with a future immortality. It is impossible for God to bestow immortality on man as a free gift of grace, as long as man fancies that he possesses it already. So, God's holiness and justice will not permit him to bestow eternal life on ban as a free gift, till ho has pleaded guilty and deserving of death. The proud Pharisees dreamt that they had eternal life in their traditional ceremonies of the law, and therefore refused to receive the eternal life offered them as a free gift by Jesus. And the proud Pharisees of a traditional Christianity dream that by possess an innate immortality as contained in their traditional dogmas, and they also, like the former, reject God's free gift of grace, the prospective immortality offered them through pith in Jesus. And as all these do not want to receive it as a gift, God will not force it upon them, any more than you would force a man to eat a meal who does not want it. As we have said already, all the dreams of ancient pagans, to the modern pagans of Pantheists and Rationalists, were, that either they would attain to perfection by being absorbed into the pity, become gods after death, or be made gods already in their life-time, And though our traditional Christians do not claim quite so much, yet they Bum that they possess the exclusive attribute of God—an innato immortality: and the perfection of it in an immediate heaven of bliss after the real man, the immortal soul, has shaken off his cumbersome little earth by death, while the true Christian believer has to strive and struggle for it, by daily crucifying his old man, the body of Adam's sin's flesh, and looks for the attainment of it, as a free gift proffered to him by God through obedience and faith in Christ. And as but few will accept this gift, as an act of God's grace, though freely offered to all men, what becomes of the so-much boasted moral nature and capacity by which it is said man attains to that perfection? Is it not an abortion, is it not a lie? because after, as it is said, it has made man moral, it then lets him fall, and makes no provision for him to enable him to lay hold of the proffered gift of immortality, by regenerating his fallen nature to put him into a position to become holy, and fit for it.

And how can the incarnation of the angel of the covenant, afterward called the Son of God, be reconciled with, evolution? By it Jesus must have needs received his human nature. The only begotten Son of God must then at a time have existed in the sperma or slime of the sea, have been a mollusc, fish, reptile, monkey, till he at last became man, and that a perfect man, without sin. If evolution was at fault in regard to Adam and his race, it must have made a tremendously sudden leap toward perfection in the man Jesus. What dependence can man have in such a law? But the idea becomes too absurd, and further investigation is not necessary. The lie is too patent, and therefore requires no refutation. Allowing that God by his command, the fiat, brought forth from the waters aquatic, and from the earth terrestial creatures, and that these he formed or moulded after into their respective forms and species, if you call that evolution, I do not object to it, but do not apply it to man, which the Pentateuch contradicts; for, remember the earth did not bring forth man, but God formed man directly out of it. The idol images of the Hindoos, as they represent the page 36 theory of evolution, are a mere dream of their hair-brained priests, like that of our modern philosophers, which is contradicted by the testimony of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the sculptures as they are found in the ruins of many Oriental cities at least 4000 years old, which represent the Nile horse, the crocodile, lizard, the ox, and all the other animals, beasts, birds, reptiles, &c., by thousands in precisely the same form and shape, as they exist at this day in these countries,—proof enough that evolution has not worked this 4000 years past. Every law of the universe is immutable, and if the animal creation is the production of that law, it would have been in operation these last 4000 years; and not having been so, we draw the conclusion therefrom that such a law never existed.