525. The Guess of Evolution

The Guess of Evolution

1Ti_6:20 : ’93O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding oppositions of science, falsely so called.’94

There is no contest between genuine science and revelation. The same God who by the hand of prophet wrote on parchment, by the hand of the storm wrote on the rock. The best telescopes and microscopes and electric batteries and philosophical apparatus belong to Christian universities. Who gave us magnetic telegraphy? Professor Morse, a Christian. Who swung the lightnings under the sea, cabling the continents together? Cyrus W. Field, the Christian. Who discovered the an’e6sthetical properties of chloroform, doing more for the relief of human pain than any man that ever lived, driving back nine-tenths of the horrors of surgery? James Y. Simpson, of Edinburgh, as eminent for piety as for science; on week days in the university lecturing on profoundest scientific subjects, and on Sabbaths preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the masses of Edinburgh. I saw the universities of that city draped in mourning for his death, and I heard his eulogy pronounced by the destitute populations of the Cowgate. Science and revelation are the bass and the soprano of the same tune. The whole world will yet acknowledge the complete harmony. But between what my text describes as science falsely so called and revelation, there is an uncompromising war, and one or the other must go under.

At the present time the air is filled with social and platform and pulpit talk about evolution, and it is well that the people who have not time to make investigation for themselves should understand that evolution in the first place, is up-and-down, out-and-out infidelity; in the second place, that it is contrary to the facts of science, and in the third, that it is brutalizing in its tendencies. I do not argue that this is a genuine book, I do not say that the Bible is worthy of any kind of credence’97those are subjects for other Sabbaths’97but I want you to understand that Thomas Paine and Hume and Voltaire no more thoroughly disbelieved the Holy Scriptures than do all the leading scientists who believe in evolution. And when, I say scientists, of course I do not mean literary men or theologians who in essay or in sermon, and without giving their life to scientific investigation, look at the subject on this side or that. By scientists I mean those who have a specialty in that direction, and who through zoological garden and aquarium and astronomical observatory, give their life to the study of the physical earth, its plants and its animals and the regions beyond, so far as optical instruments have explored them.

I put upon the witness stand living and dead the leading evolutionists’97Ernst Heckel, John Stuart Mill, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Spencer. On the witness stand, ye men of science, living and dead, answer these questions: Do you believe the Holy Scriptures? No. And so they say all. Do you believe the Bible story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? No. And so they say all. Do you believe the miracles of the Old and New Testament? No. And so they say all. Do you believe that Jesus Christ died to save the nations? No. And so they say all. Do you believe in the regenerating power of the Holy Ghost? No. And so they say all. Do you believe that human supplication, directed heavenward, ever makes any difference? No. And so they say all.

Herbert Spencer, in the only address he made in this country, in his very first sentence ascribes his physical ailments to fate, and the authorized report of that address begins the word fate with a big ’93F.’94 Professor Heckel, in the very first page of his two great volumes, sneers at the Bible as a so-called revelation. Tyndall, in his famous prayer test, defied the whole of Christendom to show that human supplication made any difference in the result of things. John Stuart Mill wrote elaborately against Christianity, and to show that his rejection of it was complete, ordered this epitaph for his tombstone: ’93Most unhappy.’94 Huxley said that at the first reading of Darwin’92s book he was convinced of the fact that teleology, by which he means Christianity, had received its death-blow at the hand of Mr. Darwin. I say nothing against infidelity, mind you, at this time. I only wish to define the belief and the meaning of the rejection.

Now, I put opposite to each other, to show that evolution is infidelity, the Bible account of how the human race started and the evolutionist account as to how the human race started. Bible account: ’93God said, let us make man in our image. God created man in his own image; male and female created he them.’94 He breathed into him the breath of life, the whole story setting forth the idea that it was not a perfect kangaroo, or a perfect orangoutang, but a perfect man. That is the Bible account. The evolutionist account: Away back in the ages there were four or five primal germs, or seminal spores from which all the living creatures have been evolved. Go away back, and there you will find a vegetable stuff that might be called a mushroom. This mushroom by innate force develops a tadpole, the tadpole by innate force develops a pollywog, the pollywog develops a fish, the fish by natural force develops into a reptile, the reptile develops into a quadruped, the quadruped develops into a baboon, the baboon develops into a man. Darwin says that the human hand is only a fish’92s fin developed. He says that the human lungs are only a swim bladder showing that we once floated or were amphibious. He says the human ear could once have been moved by force of will just as a horse lifts its ear at a frightful object. He says the human race were originally web-footed. From primal germ to tadpole, from tadpole to fish, from fish to reptile, from reptile to wolf, from wolf to chimpanzee, and from chimpanzee to man.

Now, if anybody says that the Bible account of the starting of the human race and the evolutionist account of the starting of the human race are the same accounts, he makes an appalling misrepresentation. Prefer, if you will, Darwin’92s ’93Origin of the Species’94 to the Book of Genesis, but know you are on the wrong side. As for myself, as Herbert Spencer was not present at the creation and the Lord Almighty was present, I prefer to take the divine account as to what really occurred on that occasion. To show that this evolution is only an attempt to eject God and to postpone him and to put him clear out of reach, I ask a question or two. The baboon made the man, and the wolf made the baboon, and the reptile made the quadruped, and the fish made the reptile, and the tadpole made the fish, and the primal germ made the tadpole. Who made the primal germ? Most of the evolutionists say: ’93We don’92t know.’94 Others say it made itself. Others say it was spontaneous generation. There is not one of them who will fairly and openly and frankly and emphatically say, ’93God made it.’94 The nearest to a direct answer is that made by Herbert Spencer in which he says it was made by the great ’93unknowable mystery.’94 But here comes Huxley with a pail of protoplasm to explain the thing. This protoplasm, he says, is primal life-giving quality with which the race away back in the ages was started. With this protoplasm he proposes to explain everything. Dear Mr. Huxley, who made the protoplasm?

To show you that evolution is infidel, I place the Bible account of how the brute creation was started opposite to the evolutionist’92s account of the way the brute creation was started. Bible account: You know the Bible tells how that the birds were made at one time, and the cattle made at another time, and the fish made at another time, and that each brought forth after its kind. Evolutionist’92s account: From four or five primal germs or seminal spores all the living creatures evolved. Hundreds of thousands of species of insects, of reptiles, of beasts, of fish, from four germs’97a statement flatly contradicting not only the Bible, but the very A B C of science. A species never develops into anything but its own species. In all the ages, and in all the world there has never been an exception to it. The shark never comes of a whale, nor the pigeon of a vulture, nor the butterfly of a wasp. Species never cross over. If there be an attempt at it, it is hybrid and hybrid is always sterile and has no descendants. Agassiz says that he found in a reef of Florida the remains of insects thirty thousand years old’97not three but thirty thousand years old’97and that they were just like the insects now. There has been no change. All the facts of ornithology and zoology and ichthyology and conchology, but an echo of Genesis first and twenty-first: ’93Every winged fowl after its kind.’94 Every creature after its kind. When common observation and science corroborate the Bible I will not stultify myself by surrendering to the elaborated guesses of evolutionists.

To show that evolution is infidel I place also the Bible account of how worlds were made opposite the evolutionist’92s account of how worlds were made. Bible account: God made two great lights’97the one to rule the day, the other to rule the night; he made the stars also. Evolutionist account: Away back in the ages there was a fire mist or star dust, and this fire mist cooled off into granite, and then this granite by earthquake and by storm and by light was shaped into mountains and valleys and seas, and so what was originally fire mist became what we call the earth. Who made the fire mist? Who set the fire mist to world making? Who cooled off the fire mist into granite? You have pushed God some sixty or seventy million miles from the earth, but he is too near yet for the health of evolution. For a great while the evolutionists boasted that they had found the very stuff out of which this world and all worlds were made. They lifted the telescope and they saw it, the very material out of which worlds made themselves. Nebula of simple gas. They laughed in triumph because they had found the factory where the worlds were manufactured, and there was no God anywhere around the factory! But in an unlucky hour for infidel evolutionists the spectroscope of Fraunhofer and Kirchoff were invented, by which they saw into that nebula and found it was not a simple gas, but was a compound, and hence had to be supplied from some other source, and that implied a God, and away went their theory shattered into everlasting demolition. So these infidel evolutionists go wandering up and down guessing through the universe. Anything to push back Jehovah from his empire and make the one book, which is his great communication to the soul of the human race, appear obsolete and a derision.

But I am glad to know that while some of these scientists have gone into evolution, there have been more who do not believe it. Among them, the man who by most is considered the greatest scientist we ever had this side the water’97Agassiz. A man that makes every intelligent man the earth over uncover. Agassiz says: ’93The manner in which the evolution theory in zoology is treated would lead those who are not special zoologists to suppose that observations have been made by which it can be inferred that there is in nature such a thing as change among organized beings actually taking place. There is no such thing on record. It is shifting the ground of observation from one field of observation to another to make this statement, and when the assertions go so far as to exclude from the domain of science those who will not be dragged into this mire of mere assertion, then it is time to protest.’94 With equal vehemence against this doctrine of evolution, Hugh Miller, Faraday, Brewster, Dana, Dawson, and hundreds of scientists in this country and other countries have made protest. I know that the few men who have adopted the theory make more noise than the thousands who have rejected it. A steamer of the Cunard Line took five hundred passengers safely from New York to Liverpool. Not one of the five hundred made any excitement. But after we had been four days out one morning we found on deck a man’92s hat and coat and vest and boots implying that some one had jumped overboard. Forthwith we all began to talk about that one man. There was more talk about that one man overboard than all the five hundred passengers that rode on in safety. ’93Why did he jump overboard?’94 ’93I wonder when he jumped overboard.’94 ’93I wonder if when he jumped overboard he would like to have jumped back again?’94 ’93I wonder if a fish caught him, or whether he went clear down to the bottom of the sea?’94 And for three or four days afterward we talked about that poor man.

Here is the glorious and magnificent theory that God by his omnipotent power made man, and by his omnipotent power made the brute creation, and by his omnipotent power made all worlds, and five thousand scientists have taken passage on board that theory, but ten or fifteen have jumped overboard. They make more talk than all the five thousand that did not jump. I am politely asked to jump with them. Thank you, gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you. I think I shall stick to the old Cunarder. If you want to jump overboard, jump, and test for yourselves whether your hand was really a fish’92s fin, and whether you were web-footed originally, and whether your lungs are a swim bladder. And as in every experiment there must be a division of labor, some who experiment and some who observe, you make the experiment and I will observe!

There is one tenet of evolution which it is demanded we adopt, and that which Darwin calls ’93natural selection,’94 and that which Wallace calls the ’93survival of the fittest.’94 By this they mean that the human race and the brute creation are all the time improving because the weak die and the strong live. Those who do not die survive because they are the fittest. They say the breed of sheep and cattle and dogs and men is all the time improving, naturally improving. No need of God, or any Bible, or any religion, but just natural progress. You see the race started with ’93spontaneous generation,’94 and then it goes right on until Darwin can take us up with his ’93natural selection,’94 and Wallace can take us up with his ’93survival of the fittest,’94 and so we go right on up forever. Beautiful! But do the fittest survive? Garfield dead in September’97Guiteau surviving until the following June. ’93Survival of the fittest?’94 Ah! no. The martyrs, religious and political, dying for their principles, their bloody persecutors living on to old age. ’93Survival of the fittest?’94 Five hundred thousand brave Northern men marching out to meet five hundred thousand brave Southern men, and die on the battlefield for a principle. Hundreds of thousands of them went down into the grave trenches. We stayed at home in comfortable quarters. Did they die because they were not as fit to live as we who survived? Ah! no; not the ’93survival of the fittest.’94 Ellsworth and Nathaniel Lyon falling on the Northern side. Albert Sidney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson falling on the Southern side. Did they fall because they were not as fit to live as the soldiers and the generals who came back in safety? No. Bitten with the frosts of the second death be the tongue that dares utter it! It is not the ’93survival of the fittest.’94

How has it been in the families of the world? How was it with the child physically the strongest, intellectually the brightest, in disposition the kindest? Did that child die because it was not as fit to live as those of your family that survived? Not ’93the survival of the fittest.’94 In all communities some of the noblest, grandest men dying in youth, or in mid life, while some of the meanest and most contemptible live on to old age. Not ’93the survival of the fittest.’94

But to show you that this doctrine is antagonistic to the Bible and to common-sense I have only to prove to you that there has been no natural progress. Vast improvement from another source, but mind you, no natural progress. Where is the fine horse in any of our parks whose picture of eye and mane and nostril and neck and haunches is worthy of being compared to Job’92s picture of a horse as he thousands of years ago heard it paw and neigh and champ its bit for the battle? Pigeons of today not so wise as the carrier pigeons of five hundred years ago’97pigeons that carried the mails from army to army and from city to city; one of them flung into the sky at Rome or Venice landing without ship or rail-train in London. And as to the human race, so far as mere natural progress is concerned, it started with men ten feet high; now the average is about five feet six inches. It started with men living two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred years, and now forty-five is more than the average of human life. Mighty progress we have made, have we not? I tell you natural evolution is not upward, but it is always downward. Hear Christ’92s account of it. Fifteenth Matthew and nineteenth verse: ’93Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.’94 That is what Christ said of evolution. Give natural evolution full swing in our world and it will evolve into two hemispheres of crime, two hemispheres of penitentiary, two hemispheres of lazaretto, two hemispheres of brothel. New York Tombs, Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia; Seven Dials, London; and Cowgate, Edinburgh, only festering carbuncles on the face and neck of natural evolution. See what the Bible says about the heart and then what evolution says about the heart. Evolution says, ’93Better and better and better gets the heart by natural improvement.’94 The Bible says: ’93The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?’94 When you can evolve fragrance from malodor, and can evolve an oratorio from a buzz-saw, and can evolve fall pippins from a basket of decayed crab apples, then you can by natural evolution from the human heart develop goodness. Evolution is always downward; it is never upward.

What is remarkable about this thing is, it is all the time developing its dishonesty. In our day it is ascribing this evolution to Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin. It is a dishonesty. Evolution was known and advocated hundreds of years before these gentlemen began to be evolved. The Phoenicians thousands of years ago declared that the human race wobbled out of the mud. Democritus, who lived four hundred and sixty years before Christ, knew this doctrine of evolution when he said: ’93Everything is composed of atoms, or infinitely small elements, each with a definite quality, form and movement, whose inevitable union and separation shape all different things and forms, laws and efforts, and dissolve them again for new combinations. The gods themselves and the human mind originated from such atoms. There are no casualties. Everything is necessary and determined by the nature of the atoms which have certain mutual affinities, attractions, and repulsions.’94 Anayximander centuries ago declared that the human race started at the place where the sea saturated the earth. Lucretius developed long centuries ago, in his poems, the doctrine of evolution. It is an old heathen corpse set up in a morgue. Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer tried to galvanize it. They dragged this old putrefaction of three thousand years around the earth, boasting that it was their discovery, and so wonderful was the infatuation that at the Delmonico dinner given in honor of Herbert Spencer there were those who ascribed to him this great originality of evolution. There the banqueters sat around the table in honor of Herbert Spencer, chewing beef and turkey and roast pig which according to their doctrine of evolution showed them eating their own relations!

There is only one thing worse than English snobbery, and that is American snobbery. I like democracy and I like aristocracy; but there is one kind of ocracy in this country that excites my contempt, and that is what Charles Kingsley, after he had witnessed it himself, called snobocracy. Now I say it is gigantic dishonesty when they ascribe this old heathen doctrine of evolution to any modern gentleman. When I come to speak of the dishonesties and deceptions of evolution, I find I shall have to adjourn much of my subject until another Sabbath, and then go on, perhaps, answering still further this evolution doctrine as it is advocated. I am not a pessimist but an optimist. I do not believe everything is going to destruction; I believe everything is going on to redemption. But it will not be through the infidel doctrine of evolution, but through our glorious Christianity which has effected all the good that has ever been wrought and which is yet to reconstruct all the nations.

What is that in the offing? A ship gone on the rocks at Cape Hatteras. The hulk is breaking up, crew and passengers are drowning. The storm is in full blast and the barometer is still sinking. What does that ship want. Development. Develop her broken masts. Develop her broken rudder. Develop her drowning crew. Develop her freezing passengers. Develop the whole ship. That is all it wants. Development. Oh, I make a mistake. What that ship wants is a lifeboat from the shore. Leap into it, you men of the life station. Pull away to the wreck. Steady, there! Bring the women and children first to the shore. Now the stout men. Wrap them up in flannels, kindle a crackling and roaring fire until the frozen limbs are thawed out, and between their chattering teeth you can pour restoration. Well, my friends, our world is on the rocks. God launched it well enough, but through mispilotage and the storms of six thousand years it has gone into the breakers. What does this old ship of a world want? Development. There is enough old evolution in the hulk to evolve another mast and another rudder and to evolve all the passengers and evolve the ship out of the breakers. Development. Ah! no my friends, what this old shipwreck of a world wants is a lifeboat from the shore. And it is coming. Cheer, my lads, cheer. It is coming from the shining shore of heaven, taking the crests of ten waves with one sweep of the shining paddles. Christ is in the lifeboat. Many wounds on hands and feet and side and brow, showing he has been long engaged in the work of rescue, but yet mighty to save’97to save one, to save all, to save forever. My Lord and my God, get us into the lifeboat! Away with your rotten, deceptive, infidel and blasphemous evolution, and give us Bible salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Salvation! let the echo fly

The spacious earth around,

Till the armies of the sky

Conspire to raise the sound.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage