EVOLUTION AND ITS EFFECT.
In a prominent Western city recently, a paper was read by a Congregational minister before a general meeting of the churches of that body, entitled, “The ‘Serious Situation of the Church.’” A daily paper, conservative and in good standing, says that it “was ‘easily the address of the greatest interest,’ but was not generally discussed. We are told that it set forth boldly that “evolution is undermining the ‘power of religion.’” The same secular paper asks editorially:— Can anything be done about it? Is there any likelihood that steps already taken can be retraced? Is there any way to get out of the bog except to push on and trust to emerge from its further edge? Or, to be literal, can the representatives of a church who have begun thinking and speaking in terms of evolution, by any possibility cease to do so? Can they, while accepting the doctrine as scientifically true, keep it from affecting all their reasonings and other acts? Can they, as Rev. Mr. Hatch would do, admit that evolution is true as to forms of animal life, but forbid it to “enter the realm of mental ‘phenomena’?” These are serious questions. We do not see how they can be answered in any other way than the negative. When men lose God in creation, they will certainly lose Him in re-creation, and the Christian religion is essentially a re-creative religion. If its creative power departs, all departs but the form. But the other side of the bog is destruction. Better reject evolution and believe God.