Does any plant or animal worship G.o.d? How much theology does a cow know? What does the horse think about G.o.d? What animal lives with an anxious desire to please G.o.d? How many are desirous of obeying G.o.d?
How many species trust Him? How many love Him? How many pray to Him?
How many praise Him for his goodness? Evidently no animal knows anything about G.o.d, or ever thinks of worshiping Him.
Man alone worships G.o.d. When did he begin? The idea of G.o.d seems to be in the hearts of all except the dupes of evolution, and the Bolshevists of Russia. The great problem to explain is how the worship of G.o.d began, and why man alone now worships Him.
Personality, reason, intellect, emotions, will, conscience, spirituality, and all the faculties and equipment of the soul, are naturally and easily explained upon the basis of creation, but evolution can not account for them at all.
About 2,000,000 years ago, we are told, man and the monkey family were children of the same parents. These children headed species with an even start. Yet man alone developed personality, consciousness, intelligence, and all the equipment of the soul; all the others remained stationary. This is incredible. It is inconsistent with mathematical probability. Is it likely that one species and one alone out of a million, with similar environments, would reach these high mental and spiritual attainments? No! "G.o.d created man in his own image, in the image of G.o.d created he him,"-Gen. 1:27. This declaration explains all the difficulties which are insuperable to the evolutionist.
"In the day that G.o.d created man, in the likeness of G.o.d made he him."
This likeness was not a physical likeness as a learned (?) university professor a.s.serted, but a likeness in _knowledge, righteousness and holiness_. No animal is made in the image of G.o.d. There is not the trace of a soul in all animal creation. How could the soul of man develop from nothing?
G.o.d is still creating new creatures in Christ Jesus, in righteousness and true holiness, which can not come by evolution, for sinful creatures can only grow in sinfulness, until the creative power of G.o.d makes them new creatures, as the following study in Eugenics will show: Elizabeth Tuttle, the grandmother of Jonathan Edwards, the eminent scholar and divine, was, according to H. E. Walter, a "woman of great beauty, of tall and commanding appearance, striking carriage, of strong, extreme intellectual vigor, and mental grasp akin to rapacity, but _with an extraordinary deficiency in moral sense. She was divorced from her husband on the ground of adultery and other_ IMMORALITIES. The evil trait was in the blood, for one of her sisters murdered her own son, and a brother murdered his own sister, As Richard Edwards, his grandfather, had 5 sons and 1 daughter, by a second wife, but none of their numerous progeny rose above mediocrity, and their descendants gained no abiding reputation, Jonathan Edwards must have owed his remarkable mental qualities largely to his grandmother rather than his grandfather. He was evidently a new creation in Christ Jesus and was cured by grace of all inherited immoralities, so that he became the ancestor of one of the most remarkable families in the history of the world, as follows:--
"Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703. He was strong in character, mentally vigorous and fearlessly loyal to duty. In 1900, of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, 1394 had been located and the following information in regard to them had been gathered: College presidents, 13; college professors, 65; doctors, 60; clergymen, missionaries, etc., 100; officers in the army and navy, 75; eminent authors and writers, 60; lawyers, over 100; judges, 30; holders of public offices, one being vice-president of the United States, 80; United States senators, 3; managers of railroads, banks, insurance companies, etc., 15; college graduates, 295; several were governors and holders of important state offices."
The claim is also made that "almost if not every department of social progress and of public weal has felt the impulse of this healthy and long-lived family."
"The "Jukes" family was founded by a shiftless fisherman born in New York in 1720, Since that time the family has numbered 1200 persons. The following facts are quoted from the _records_: Convicted criminals, 130; habitual thieves, 60; murderers, 7; wrecked by diseases of wickedness, 440; immoral women, fully one-half; professional paupers, 310; trades learned by twenty, ten of these learned the trade in prison.
"How much of this expense to the state was due to bad blood we can not say. If the original Jukeses had become Christians we have no doubt that the majority of their descendants would have been humble, but orderly, and possibly useful citizens."
Aaron Burr, a grandson of Jonathan Edwards, lacked but one electoral vote to become president of the U.S. His intellectual standing in Princeton was not equaled by another for 100 years.
Jonathan Edwards was a new creation, as is every other regenerated person.
According to evolution, there can be no new creation. According to the word of G.o.d, and the experience of an innumerable host, G.o.d is continually creating souls anew, who become "new creatures". Evolution is not in harmony with the Bible nor the experience of the children of G.o.d.
Whenever it can be shown that men become more spiritual when they accept the theory, and become more devoted to saving souls as their zeal for the theory increases, the theory will be worthy of more serious consideration. We await the evidence.
Evolution can not account for the spirituality of man, but tends to destroy it where it exists.
41. THE HOPE OF IMMORTALITY
The belief in the immortality of the soul has been well nigh universal, in all ages, and among all nations, and is taught by all religions. Without it, life and death are insolvable mysteries. A doctrine so universal, so well established by reason, ought not to be set aside without the most convincing reasons and the most compelling evidence. Either this universal belief is due to revelation, or the abundance of proof appealing to reason, or both.
A child is born, suffers agonies for weeks and months, and dies. If no future, who can solve the mystery? John Milton writes his immortal "Paradise Lost," and dies. Must his great soul perish? Nero murdered his brother, his sister, his wife and his mother, and mult.i.tudes of Christians and lastly himself, and was guilty of a mult.i.tude of other shocking crimes; while many of the best men and women this world ever knew suffered persecution and martyrdom for doing good and blessing others. Will they all alike meet the same fate--annihilation--at the hands of a just G.o.d?
The immortality of the soul is supported by science. Science teaches the indestructibility of matter. Not all the power that man can bring to bear, can destroy the minutest portion of matter, not a molecule, not an atom, not an electron. The smallest particle of dust visible to the eye contains, we are told, about 8,000,000,000 atoms, and each atom, as complex as a piano,--1740 parts. Not one of these atoms or parts could be annihilated by all the power of a thousand Niagaras.
In all the multiplied chemical changes everywhere in the world, not a single particle, the most worthless, is lost or destroyed. Dissolve a silver dollar in aquafortis, and then precipitate it to the bottom, and not a particle need be lost. If G.o.d takes such scrupulous care of the most worthless particle of matter, will he suffer the immortal soul to perish? If he preserves the dust, how much more so the highest of all his creations, the mind that can write an epic, compose an oratorio, or liberate a race. Evolution crushes out of the heart the hope of immortality, and makes man but an improved brute, while Jesus Christ "hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
If evolution be true, when did man become immortal? At what period did he cease to be a brute, and become an immortal soul? Was it before the days of the pithecanthropus, the Piltdown fraud, the Heidelberg man, or the Neanderthal man?
The change was ever so slow and gradual; could the parents, anywhere along the line, be mere brutes and the children immortal human beings?
Would it not be impossible to draw the line? Is it not evident that the ape-man could never grow into immortality, or into the image of an infinitely great and glorious G.o.d?
If evolutionists _could_ give us any convincing evidence that the body of man developed from the brute, they can not prove that the soul grew from nothing to the high mental, moral and spiritual attainments, into the very image of G.o.d, and by its own efforts become as immortal as G.o.d himself.
After all, did any theory as ridiculously untrue as evolution ever masquerade as science, or ask to be accepted by thoughtful men? Has it as much to support it as the false sciences of alchemy and astrology?
The brute origin of man, infidelity, agnosticism, modernism, atheism and bolshevism, are in harmony, and cooperate in robbing man of heaven and the hope of immortality.
If man believes that he dies as the brute dies, he will soon live as the brute lives, and all that is precious to the heart of man will be forever destroyed. We recoil from such a fate, but live in the serene a.s.surance that such a thing can never be.
42. SIN
Sin is a great fact. It can not be denied. It can not be explained by evolution. It is universal. Every race all nations, with all grades of intellect and culture, civilized or uncivilized, are cursed with sin. All the wrongs, all crimes in the world, all immoralities, are due to sin. Sin causes tremendous destruction of life, property, and character. Why is it universal? When did it originate? Did it originate in all the members of the brute-human race at one time? Did some become sinners, and others remain without sin? Sin must be developed, since brutes have no sin. Why not some of the ape-humans without sin? Does natural selection explain the universal sinfulness of man, on the ground that those who did not have this "improvement"
perished? They all died and only sinners were left, hence all survivors are sinners! Sin makes men more fit, and hence sinners only survive! Is evolution simply ridiculous, or a crime?
When in the "ascent of man" did he become a sinner? A million years ago? Judging from the pictures of fierce alleged ape-men, it must have been a long, long time ago. Did all become sinners then? What became of the progeny of those who had not secured the attainment of sin? Why have not other members of the monkey family become sinners? Why do we not hang them for murder? Will they yet attain unto sinfulness?
H. G. Wells, the alleged historian, says, p. 954, Outline of Hist., "If all the animals and man had been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there had been no first parents, no Eden and no Fall. And, if there had been no Fall, then the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin, and the reason for an atonement upon which the current teaching based Christian emotion and morality, collapses like a house of cards."
Evolution claims that man fell up and not down. It denies almost every truth of religion and the Bible, as well as of experience. "Man is falling upward, he is his own Savior, he is ever progressing, and has no need of a Savior." Contrast this with the sublime statements of the word of G.o.d concerning the creation and the fall of man.
Evolution is charged with explaining all phenomena pertaining to man,--soul and body. It exhausts itself in trying to show that the body of man may _possibly_ be developed from the brute. It fails miserably. The problem of accounting for the soul of man with all its equipment is so much more difficult, that little or no effort is made to account for it, virtually confessing that the much-exploited theory of evolution can not possibly be true, when applied to the soul as well as the body.
43. REDEMPTION
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 G.o.d 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 d.a.m.ned, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. She was sustained by the power of G.o.d, 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.