A DANGEROUS POPULAR DRIFT.
By S.
MANY religious teachers are now accepting the evolution theory of creation instead of the Biblical account, because they have come to believe that the Biblical narrative is “contrary to known laws of the evolution of nature,” and because “the truths of geology have supplanted” the record in Genesis. It is certain that there are few deductions more uncertain than the deductions of geologists in regard to the history of the earth. Each geologist who has attempted to give the age of the earth has reckoned it some millions of years older or younger than other equally learned geologists. Concerning the composition of the earth itself, the theories of scientists are various and diverse. Science has taught us, and proved to its own satisfaction, that the interior of the earth is a molten globe which is surrounded by a cooling crust of solid matter. Science has taught us, and proved to its own satisfaction, that the interior of the earth is the solidest kind of a solid, with a coating of molten matter between the solid core and the outer crust. Science rejects the scientific theory of the molten interior because of the scientific demonstration that, if the interior of the earth were molten, the attraction of the sun and moon would create a tidal wave of the molten matter that would completely disintegrate the crust of the earth, even if it were made of solid steel, and the earth would flatten in at the poles and expand at the equator until it became a circular flattened disk, revolving on a shortened axis6like a great circular saw. Science has also rejected the scientific theory of a cushion of molten matter between the solid core and the solid crust for similar scientific reasons, and teaches now that the earth is solid from center to circumference. What the next scientific deduction in reference to the earth will be, neither we nor the scientist can tell. Science has given various scientific reasons for earthquake and volcanic phenomena, and these have been abandoned one by one, because later science has proved the older demonstrations unscientific and unreliable, being overturned by later manifestations of the powers that produce these phenomena. With many the deductions of science are sufficient to prove the Biblical account of creation wrong, because this “science” does not agree with the Bible. It hardly needs to be said that it is entirely to the honor of the Bible that such science does not agree with it. If it did, the Bible certainly would be overthrown, for “science” has continually overthrown “science,” and demonstrated the overthrow; and the process is going on to-day. The Bible could not agree with such science and be the Word of God. It is strange, however, that so many choose to believe that each of these untenable scientific theories has overthrown the Bible; and the strangest part of it all is that so many who have entered the sacred desk have forsaken the solid Word for the ever-shifting theories of science. “Science” has been able to arrive at few conclusions that it has not been able later to overthrow; and these few unassailable conclusions are in harmony with the teachings of that Book which is the fountain of true science. The “known laws of the evolution of nature” are not as “surely” known (?) now by the scientist as they were a few years ago. Even scientists are now discarding the Darwinian theory of the creation of animal life. The missing link has not been found; for no such link as the evolutionist is looking for was ever lost. There is more than one missing link, however, in the theory; for the Darwinian has not been able to weld up his chain from the protoplasm even up to the monkey,—not by many a phantom link. The differences between the other classes of animal life are as clear and definite as between the monkey and the man. The scientist can not trace any animal out of one species and into another, or trace the origin of one genus back into another genus. Each had its own beginning, and did not spring from a dissimilar order. With this showing it is asking us to exercise a credulity that the scientist would not tolerate for a moment toward the Bible, when we are asked by such scientists to accept such deductions and turn our back upon the Word of God. The psalmist declares that “the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” It is better to be simple enough to believe that sure testimony of Him who is “from everlasting to everlasting,” and therein possess the truest wisdom, the key to the true science, than it is to give ourselves over to the wisdom of this world, shifting, uncertain, anchorless, rudderless, and self-destructive, believing all our lives that which is not true, and refusing to our eternal ruin to believe the sure Word of Him in whom we live and move and have our being. And yet to-day the whole tendency of popular religious teaching is away from the Word and toward the acceptance of these vacillating theories which contradict the Word. The colleges are full of them; the public schools are full of them; the popular pulpits are overflowing with them; and now the Sunday-schools are to take them up. The set purpose of the deceiver is to create in the minds of young and old disrespect for the Word of God and a disbelief in its teachings. The campaign is now on in all its might, and the baleful results are seen in a religion of cold formality, a patterning after the worldliness of the unconverted, a dearth of vital godliness, a lessening number of conversions, and a general turning to the world whose teachings they have put above the words of Holy Writ. As a consequence, faith is disappearing, and the stirring words of God’s last solemn warning are falling on leaden ears wherever that propaganda has found acceptance among the people. Perhaps the greatest menace to the soul to-day is found in this faith-destroying disease which is sweeping the popular churches like an epidemic of death. The Christian’s hope and shield are in God and the Word which He has given. To forsake that Word is to turn our back upon the One who gave it, and in that there is no hope. Science can not make one protoplasmic cell, to say nothing of a peopled world; neither can it save the souls of those who flee to it, flinging reproach upon the Word of Him who can do all this and a myriad other things of which we have never dreamed. It is best to believe God; it is safe to believe Him; and there is no safety in anything else.