'" V The Commoner APRIL, 1921 . .: ,'ry:: M basis and ignoring spiritual values, attacks the Yery foundations of Christianity. I shall later ftrace tho influence of Darwinism on world peace when the doctrine is espoused by one bold enough to carry it to its. logical conclusion, but II must now point out its effect upon young Christians. A boy is born into a Christian family; as soon as ho is able to join words together into sen- 'EMtences his mother teaches him to lisp the child's :: "Now I lay mo down to sleep; I pray Aim T nl mir n-nl f r Irnnni tP T nVimilrl ?fn tiafnra 4':Ii wake. I Dray the Lord my soul to take." A .'?. rjr. .. . . ., . . . , . .. .... -?;3iiuie later tne ooy-is taugnc tno .uoru s jtrayer - JMH ... a j. and each day ne lays his petition oeiore tno eavenly Father: "Give us this day our daily bread." "Lead us not into temptation." "De liver us from evil." "Forgive our trespasses," He talks with God. He goes to Sunday School and learns that the Heavenly Father is even more kind than earthly parents: he hears the poacher tpll how precious our lives are in the lght of God now even a sparrow cannot tail to the ground without His notice. All his faitht ij built upon the Book that informs him that he ;-jjjfiB$ma.de in tho image of God; that Christ came to ; 4?jFeveal God to man and to be man's Saviour. Then he goes to college and a learned pro fessor leads him through a book 600 pages thick, largely devoted to resemblances between man 6! the beasts about him. His attention is called So a point in the ear that is like the point of the ar of the ourang, to canine teeth, to-muscles like ose by which a horse moves its ears. He is as- ured that the development of the moral sense can be explained on a brute basis without any met of, or aid from, God. (See pages 113-114.) No mention of religion, the only basis for ibrality; not a suggestion of a sense of respon sibility to God nothing but cold, clammy ma JjlSrialisml Darwinism transforms the Bible Into wfetory book and reduces Christ to the stature of man. The instructor gives the student a new family millions ot years long, with its roots in the .-water marine animals') and then SETS HIM UtftVOTTCrn TXrrrnTT TAT'Un"MTT-m OAPAmTV "RTT OOOD OR EVIL'TBTJT WITH NO LIGHT TO mJJDE HIM, NO COMPASS TO DIRECT HIM D NO CHART OF THE SEA OF LIFE! And is Is done. Jn schools and colleges where the Ible cannot be taught, but where infidelity, agnosticism, and atheism are taught in the name .science and philosophy. This is not neutral ly The Christians should at least insist upon real neutrality, jli tne aetense oi tne .hi Die is t permitted in schools supported by taxation, teacher should be allowed to attack the Bible such schools. volution is tho basis of higher criticism a rase used to describe a school of critics who, tarting out with the proposition fcftat the Bible ust be wrong because its account of Creation flitters from the evolutionary hypothesis, pro ved to eliminate all that is supernatural in it jjfad to undermine the faith of their followers in It authority. They put the Bible on the operat ing table and cut out the parts that they think (iiseased. When they are through, it is no longer jk&e Book of Books It i3 "a scrap of paper." No wonder so large a percentage of the boys nd girls who go from Sunday Schools and (Churches to colleges (sometimes as high as 75 5r cent) never return to religious work. How ah one feel uoq'b presence in nis aaiiy lire ix Darwin's reasoning Is sound? This restraining influence, more potent than any external force, "Si, paralyzed when God is put so far away. How can one believe In prayer if, for millions of years, bd has never touched a human life or laid His $fand upon the destiny of the human race? What mockery to petition or implore, if God neither illears nor answers. Elijah taunted tho prophets wfcBaal when their god failecPto answer with fire; JtCry aloud," he said, "Peradventure he Sleepeth." Darwin mocks tho Christians even or cruelly; he tell3 us that our God has been asleep for millions of years. He does not em phasize the fact that Jehovah was ever awake. bwhere does he collect for tne reader the evi dences of a Creative Power and call upon man lb worship and obey God. The great scientist fa, if I may borrow a phrase, "too much absorbed 'in the things infinitely small to consider the Swings infinitely great." Darwinism chills the ipiritual nature and quenches the fires of re ligious enthusiasm. If the proof in support of arwinism does not compel acceptance and it aoes not why substitute It for an account of the feroation that links man directly with the Creator nd holds before him an example to be imitated? Kjj the eminent theologian, Charles Hodge, says: JThe Scriptural doctrine (of Creation) accounts - d. r , -WTi-i i for the spiritual nature of man, and moots all 5iia spiritual necessities. It gives him an object of adoration, love and confidence. It reveals tho Being on whom hia indestructible sense of re sponsibility terminates. The truth of this doc trine, therefore, rests not only upon tho author ity of the Scriptures but on tho very constitution of our nature." Acceptance of Darwin's doctrine tends to de stroy one's belief in immortality as taught by the Bible. If there has been no break in the lino between man and the beasts no time when by the act of tho Heavenly Father man became "a living Soul," at what period in man's develop ment was he endowed with the hope of a futuro life? And, if the brute theory leads to tho abandonment of belief in a future iifo with its rewards and punishments, what stimulus to righteous living is offered in its place? Darwinism leads to a denial of God. Neitzscho carried Darwinism to its logical conclusion and it made him the most extreme of anti-Christians. I had read extracts from his writings enough to acquaint me with his sweeping denial of God and of tho Saviour but not enough to make mo familiar with his philosophy. As the war progressed I became more and more impressed with the conviction that tho Gor man propaganda rested upon a materialistic foundation. I secured the writings of Neitzsche and found in them a defense, made in advance, of all the cruelties and atrocities practiced by the militarists of Germany. Neitzsche tried to substitute the worship of the "Superman" for the worship of God. He not only rejected the Creator, but he rejected all moral standards. Ho praised war and eulogizod hatred because it led to war. He denounced sympathy and pity as at tributes unworthy of man. He believed that tho teachings of Christ made degenerates and, logi cal to the end, he regarded Democracy as the refuge of weaklings. ' He saw in man nothing but the animal and In that animal the highest virtue he recognized was "Tho Will to Power" a will which should know no let or hindrance, no restraint or limitation. Neitzsche's philosophy would convert the world into a -ferocious conflict between beasts, each brute trampling ruthlessly on everything in his way. In his book entitled "Joyful Wisdom," Neitzsche ascribes to Napoleon the very same dream of power Europe under one sovereign -and that sovereign the master of the world that lured the Kaiser into a sea of blood from which he emerged an exile seeking security un der a foreign flag. Neitzsche names Darwin as one of the three great men of his century, but tries to deprive him of credit (?) for the doc trine that bears hia name by saying that Hegel made an earlier announcement of it. Neitzsche died in an insane asylum, but his philosophy has wrought the moral ruin of a mulitltude, if it is not actually responsible for bringing upon the world its greatest war. His philosophy, if it is worthy tho name of philosophy, is tho ripened fruit of Darwinism and a tree is known by Its fruit. In 1900 over twenty years ago while an International Peace Congress was in session in Paris the following editorial appeared in L'Univers: "The spirit of peace has fled the earth be cause evolution has taken possession of it. The plea for peace in past years has been inspired by faith in the divine nature and the divine origin 'of man; men were then looked upon as children of one Father and war. therefore, was fratricide. But now that men are looked up on as children of apes, what matters it whether they are slaughtered or not?" To destroy the faith of Christians and lay the foundation for the bloodiest war in history would seem enough to condemn Darwinism, but there are still two other indictments to bring against it. First; that it is the basis of the gigantic class struggle that is now shaking so ciety throughout the world. Both the capitalist and the laborer are increasingly class conscious. .Why? Because the doctrine of the "Individual -efficient for himself" the bruto doctrine of the "survival of the fittest" is driving men into a life and death struggle from which sympathy and the spirit of brotherhood are eliminated. It Is transforming the industrial world into a slaughter-house. Benjamin Kidd in a masterly work entitled, "The Science of Power," points out how Darwinism furnished Neitzsche with a . scientific basis for his godless system of philoso phy. He also quotes eminent English scientists to support the last charge in the indictment, name ly, that Darwinism robs the reformer of hope. Its plan of operation is to improve the race by "scientific breeding" on a purely physical basis. A few hundred years may be 'required possibly a fow thousand but what is time to ono who carries eons in his quiver and envelops his op ponents in tho "Mist of Ages." Kldd would substitute tho "Emotion of tho Idoal" for scientific brooding and thus shorten tho time necessary for tho triumph of a social roform. Ho counts ono or two generations as sufficient. This Is an enormous advance over Darwin's doctrine, but Christ's plan is still more encouraging. A man can bo born again; tho Bprings of life can be cleansed Instantly, so that tho heart loves tho things that it formerly hated and hates tho things that it once loved. If this can bo true of ono, it can bo true of any number. Thus, a nation can bo born in a day If the ideals of tho people can bo changed. Many have tried to harmonize Darwinism with tho Bible, but these efforts, while honest and .sometimes even agonizing, have not boon suc cessful. How could they bo when tho natural and inevitable tendency of Darwinism is to exalt the mind at tho expense of tho heart, to over estimate the reliability of the reason as com pared with faith and to impair confidence in the Bible, wh'ch not only nowhere suggests that man is tho offspring of the brute, but expressly ac counts for man's origin in a way Irreconcilably different. Darwinism discredits tho things that are su pernatural and encourages the ..worship of tho intellect an idolatry as deadly to spiritual progress as the worship of images made by hu man hands. The injury that it does would bo oven greater than it is but for the moral momen tum acquired by the student before he comes under tho blighting influenco of the doctrine. Many instances could be cited to show how the theory that man descended from the brute has, when deliberately adopted, driven reverence from tho heart and made young Christians ' agnostics and sometimes atheists depriving them of the joy and BQcioty of the sorvico that come from altruistic effort inspired by religion. I have recently read of a pathetic case in point. In the Encyclopedia Americana you will find a sketch of tho life of George John Romanes, from which the following extract is taken: "Romanes, George John; English scientist. In 1879 ho was elected fellow of the Royal Society and in 1878 published, under the pseudonym 'Physicus' a work entitled, 4A Candid Examina tion of Theism in which he took up a somewhat defiant atheistic position. Subsequently his views underwent considerable change; ho revised the 'Candid Examination,' and, toward tho close of his life, was ongaged on 'A Candid Examination of Religion in which ho returned to theistic beliefs. His notes for this work were published after his death, under the title 'Thoughts on Religion edited by Canon Gore. Romanes was an ardent supporter of Darwin and the evolu tionists and in various works sought to extend evolutionary principles to mind, both in the low er animals and in the man. He wrote very ex tensively on modern biological theories." Let me use Romanes' own language to de scribe the disappointing experiences of this in tellectual "prodigal son." On page 180 of "Thoughts on Religion" (written, as above stated, just before his death but not published until after his demise) he says, "The views that I entertained on this subject (Plan in Revela tion) when an undergraduate (i. o. the ordinary orthodox views) were abandoned in the presence of the theory of Evolution." It was the doctrine of Evolution that led him astray. He attempted to employ reason td the exclusion of faith with the usual result. He abandoned prayer, as he explains in pages lVi and 143: "Even tho simplest act of will in re gard to religion that of prayer has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a cen tury, simply because it has seemed impossible to pray, as it were,hypothetically, that, much as I have always desired to be able to pray, I can not will the attempt. To justify myself for what my better judgment has often seemed to be es sentially irrational, I have ever made sundry ex cuses." ''Others have doubtless other difficulties, but mine is chiefly, I think, that of an undue regard to reason as against heart and will undue, I mean, if so it be that Christianity is true, and the conditions to faith in it have been of divine ordination." In time he tired of the husks of materialism and started back to his Father's house. It was a weary journey but, as he plodded along, his appreciation of the heart's part increased until, on pages 152 and 153, he says, "It is a fact that we all feel the intellectual part of man to be 'higher than the animal, whatever our theory of his origin. It is a fact that we all feel the moral part of man to be 'higher' than the in tellectual, whatever our theory of either may be. 1 it is also a fact that we all similarly feel the ,itwA. w - .u.,&'jju ,! t...-.jmtt.., J - a.i jialU, tJM fat-: IjMU'AJjAl !;;. I-. . i --.-.-.. -ri