Revelation v. Hypothesis
George Taylor Lee

GLENDALE
COMPOSITION BOOK

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Name		George Taylor Lee
School		Experience
Grade		——————

Revelation or Hypothesis

Who is God that I may believe in Him? What am I? What must I believe? What is it in me that goes beyond the physical? What is it in man that refuses to be satisfied, though he should gain the whole physical world? If man be the evolution of a protoplasm, which formed the basis of his physical life, developed and brought to his adult form by that which is physical, how can he be other than physical? Is he not a mere animal? If not, why not?[note 1] Theory may, or might answer some of the questions above just as revelation does, but it may be diametrically opposed to revelation in other respects, so my proposition is:[note 2]

Revelation alone can give full and satisfactory answers to the questions above propounded; and, if we find this to be true, then theory based on hypothesis can give no reliable help in the search for that which is beyond the physical, except as led thereto by the spiritual—by revelation. Therefore, man being spiritual, the physical can give no explanation of his spirit, its birth, life, needs, etc. Revelation alone can tell these things: tell how man's spirit was born, what its life is, what its needs are, and the laws and acts by which it may grow to projection and go on to a higher life when freed of its mortal frame. The spiritual man is not the evolution of a physical protoplasm into a spiritual existence.

I would like to know what evolution is—to have some clear definition and understand of the meaning, or meanings, of the word as applicable to ordinary matters of life, and as understandable by the ordinary mind. As an illustration of the meaning or use of the word, some say that it is such that, if one believes in it, he cannot believe the Bible. If not, why not? The Bible teaches, and is meant to teach, religion—to teach the spiritual man—the immortal spirit in him—the real man, how to walk aright in the realm of the spirit's life. Science teaches, along with many other things, evolution; which it is said, is opposed to religion. But science should be the handmaid of religion, for science should teach truth, and true religion must be truth or nothing. Therefore, it is all the more necessary for us to get a clear definition of evolution—of that phase of evolution which is opposed to our religion, if we desire to study the effect of the one on the other; particularly the theory that man was created by God, but was evolved from of a physical protoplasm.

The Bible, as its advocates contend, is the book of God; the exponent of His revelations and of the rules by which the spirit of man, or in man, must be governed and guided if it would find an eternal life of blessedness—the book of religion which man must practice in order to reach bliss beyond the grave.

It is contended by some that evolution, as a science, proves that the earth and all things thereon, including man, were not created according to the Bible story; that, therefore, evolution contradicts the Bible and proves that its statements on the subject are not true; and so, being proven to be false in one matter, we have the right doubt its truth in all others.[note 3] Such people do not seem to have an idea that the Bible story may be correct and their theory of evolution be wrong. They do not stop for a moment to consider that the Bible professes to state facts; based on revelations made by God, in respect of all that relates to religion and to the His dealings with man, while evolution offers only theories and hypotheses as the basis of the arguments made in its favor. The definition of the word, as I shall give it here, is as follows:

The doctrine of the derivation, or the derivations, of all forms of life, by gradual modification, from earlier and simpler forms, or from one rudimentary form: the series of steps by which a germ or a rudimentary part becomes an adult organism or a fully developed part. The above definition applies to the doctrine of evolution as used in the study of biology (which is the science of life or of living organisms), and that which has produced a bitter strife between those who believe the Bible literally true, and those who believe in the teachings of evolution, or the science of evolution (if it be a science), is the assertion that man was not created by God, as the Bible says he was; but that he began as a germ, a rudimentary form, and by a serious of gradual growths and modifications, by evolution, finally became the being he is to-day. In plainer language, the strict adherents to the doctrine of evolution contend that man began existence as a protoplasm, a rudimentary first form and by the process of evolution, passed from the lowest stage of animal life, through gradually changing animal forms, into the present from he bears. So, taking the conjectures made regarding these changes the first idea we get of the first form of man, recognizable by our human minds, is one that resembles a monkey or ape. So it is said that evolution teaches that man descended or sprang from monkey. The expression is not strictly true, for evolution teaches that man sprang from a rudimentary from far below the monkey; but, since in the process of his evolution he passed through forms resembling those apes or monkeys, as that science teaches he did; the ordinary man may be allowed to use the expression above indicated, viz: that the science of evolution, as applied to biology, teaches that man sprang or descended from the monkey or ape; or more properly, perhaps that man ascended from the lowest orders of life, having forms resembling those of monkeys at different stages of his growth, approaching nearer and nearer to the form of man as we now see it, until such present form was reached.

The rudimentary germ form which the adult organism called man as grown or evoluted is said by those teaching said science to be a protoplasm—a wonderful and high-sounding word to the unlearned, being a derivation from two Greek words, which mean first form. So these wise men and this wonderful science nod their gray heads and solemnly tell us that man has come up from his first form. Almost any man will agree to that, or rather that man has descended, or has come down through the ages from his first form; but those who believe the Bible will say that such first form was given him by God, when He created man. What does the evolutionist say that first from was?

They say it was a first from. It is true they say it was a protoplasm; but that means first first form; so they wisely answer that man's first form was his first form. It is like saying: “That horse is a horse.” However, such scientists will say that protoplasm means more than first form. Yes, as they use it, but the Greek word protos mean first, and the Greek word plasma mean form; and protoplasm is made up of those two words. Still, in biology, the word plasm is used to denote the viscous material of a vegetable or an animal cell; so protoplasm may be said to mean the first viscous material, of an animal cell in this connection, man being said to be an animal. Then, giving the definition of the word viscous, we may say that a protoplasm is the first sticky, glutinous, semiliquid, somewhat granular substance, which forms the principal portion of the material which forms an animal or vegetable cell; a sort of jellyfish arra[n]gement floating on the waters of the primal world, like a strain of frogs' eggs on a pond's surface. But, if I remember correctly, Mr. Darwin said that this first form resembled a sewed up pig skin, a leatherbottle, such as was used in older times to put wine in; which when filled, looked like a pig, with head and tail cut off, and legs cut off as the knees, which assertion brought forth from some Englishman, whose name I do not remember, these lines, viz:

How many wondrous things there be
Of which we can't the reason see;
And one of these, I used to think,
That most men like a drop of drink.
But here comes Darwin, with his plan,
And shows the true descent of man;
And that explains it all full well,
For man was once a leather bottel.[note 4]

And I think we may add that his piggish form has not been entirely lost, but has grown to be that of a big hog, in many instances; and that his jelly-fish ancestor has, only two often, handed down its lack of backbone and consistency.

What I would like to know is this connection is, where did the protoplasm come from. From whence did the leather bottle spring? When did the the sticky, glutinous, semiliquid, somewhat granular substance come from, which formed the first animal or vegetable cell, which suggested a leather bottle as above lines indicate? The trouble is that such searchers after mysteries get lost, cannot get away from the filters of time and catch blindly at theories based on suppositions, without prove facts; which facts they cannot procure, because they belong to the infinite.

I have heard it asserted that the world was not and could not have been created in six of our solar days, and, therefore, the story of creation give in the Bible is untrue. This story being untrue, as it is argued, the rest of the book may, at least, be doubted.

In the first chapter of Genesis we read; “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” In the begginning of what? What beginning was the book referring to? It can be nothing in this connection other than the beginning of time, human time, or time as measured by man. No mere animal is interested in time, and the earth does not know it. So the story is that, in the beginning of time; when man began, God created the heaven and the earth. God knows what time is in respect of His creatures and creations, but time means nothing to Him. Eternity had no beginning and can have no end; just as space can have no bounds; so God had no beginning and can have no end. The myriads of worlds which float in space may have had beginnings; but the God by whom they were formed, and the material of which they were made—the atoms or particles of which they were formed existed from eternity.

In considering the works, and ways and things that be of God, get away from time; get away from every idea of limitation upon Him in any way. Place no bounds around space; let your minds, your spirits go out into the infinite so far as the revelations of God may lead you. You can go no further; for when we seek to fathom the mysteries of the infinite without the leading, the revelations, of an infinite power, we are lost in impenetrable darkness.

The story of Genesis does not say that the earth was created in six solar days. It says that in the beginning, when time began, the earth was without form, without shape, and that it was void, empty, unoccupied. It was not meant by void and without form to say that there was no earth—that it had no existence. On the contrary it said: “And the earth (something then existing) was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

There was no command: Let there be an earth. The first was: “Let there be light!” Light to shine on an uncreated earth? No, but on that already existing. Of the earth it was said: “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” Of living and moving things it was said, in substance: let the waters and the earth bring forth moving things that have life; fishes; fowl, beasts and creeping things. It is true it is said that God created the beasts, cattle and all living things; but it is also said that the waters and the earth brought them forth, but the process of so doing was not revealed.

It must be remembered that the story of creation comes down to us by tradition, oral accounts of stories handed down from father to son for many hundred years before any of it was written. The stories of those most ancient days were put in writing by men, who gathered them from many sources.

There is no doubt that the men who finally wrote the Bible were inspired. Yes inspired by God, but they were men and wrote as men. I believe that it was by the teaching of God's Holy Spirit that they wrote those revelations which were necessary to guide, instruct, build up and fit for a future life the spiritual man, for these things could not be known, except by revelations. But the things that were of the earth earthly, such as human history and the like, they wrote as the historian does to-day, gathering their date from all sources known to them.

That God created the earth there can be no doubt. If the Bible, every Bible, and every passage of it were lost to-day, and man were left with his knowledge of natural laws, he would have to confess that there was design in everything in the universe, and that some intelligence—some omnicient and omnipotent power was controlling and operating the whole system. It is folly to talk of chance and/or great first cause. Chance would to have to have something to act on; and, if it had the intelligence to act and did act it would no longer be chance: If we suppose a great first cause, logically we would have to go farther and say there was a time when there was nothing, which would be absurd.

The word create, as used in Genesis, does not mean that God created the earth in the sense that He produced it or brought into existence out of nothing; nor can such a meaning be attached to the use of the word as respects other stated creations. The whole story tells that there was something existing, out of which to produce the results narrated; and what was done was to produce a new construction out of existing materials. This may not be the best exposition of the use of the word create, as used in the Bible story, but it is the best I can give to express my ideas on the subject. The material was there and out of it God gave form to the earth and fitted it for man, causing the earth and the water to bring forth life in various and varied forms, thus creating, through many agencies the earth and all that was in it and on it; and whether the human writer, who wrote that the world was created in six days meant six solar days, or six periods, or six millions of periods, makes no sort of difference. So far as the story is a revelation, it tells that God created all things: so far as it is historical, it is the work of man. It is revealed, however, that, when the works there detailed were were completed, God ceased from His labor, which of course refers only to the works detailed and which tells us that the Creator had finished the work of creation, so far as the earth was concerned.

If God chose to create the earth and all that is in or on it in six solar days, there can be no doubt that He could do so. Certainly no one can say that he did not do it, or that He could not. If the Bible means to say that the earth was created in six solar days, no one can deny it and prove him assertion. One might argue that it was not done, and point to many proofs to sustain him, but he could not point to anything to prove that God could not perform that miracle . But, if the Bible means to say, as the revelation of a fact by God himself, that the world and all that is on or in it was created in six solar days; then we have that stated as a fact, which one must believe and accept, unless we can show that the Bible is untrue. Still all that we have been able to learn of the works of God, in the realm of nature, proves that he works by means, which we are apt to call nature's laws and put down as nature's works (this in the realm of nature) and deny that He performs miracles; when, as a matter of fact, it was a most wonderful miracle—one far beyond our comprehension, to put into operation the laws and forces by which the earth and all which therein is were brought to the life which we now see, even if we adopt the theory of the evolutionists. To think that a power and intelligence, as there must be, which rules and order the lives and courses and inhabitors of the myriads of worlds in space, could not create this little world in six days, would be absurd; but whether He actually did so would be a fact which we could not know unless He revealed it to us. So, if one believes that it was done in six solar days, and if another believes that the six days mean six periods of ten thousand or more years, each, that matters but little; for both persons would believe that God created the earth and all that is in it and on it in His own good way and time; and, if we poor finite and ignorant mortals cannot agree on the time and process, still we would believe in the creation; and as to the time and process that would be a matter not necessary for us to know in the matter of the soul's salvation.

The Bible tells us that the Lord God commanded the earth to bring forth grass, herbs and all trees, and to bring forth every animal and creeping things; and the waters to bring forth animals and fishes and fowls; but nowhere is the command give that air, land, or water, or that all there combined, should bring forth man. Of man it is said:

“And God said, let us make man in our image; after our likeness[”]:

We may let our imaginations run riot and come as near solving the mystery of the creation of the earth, as we can by any number of hypotheses and attempts to elucidate and establish them by argument and logic. Inspired by the Spirit of God breathed into us, making us parts of that Spirit, which was and is and is to come, and which has known all of the works of God throughout eternity; imagination, that human eyes and mind of the spirit in man, beholds a vision wonderful:

A vast and wondrous world, swinging in space, moving onward in its orbit around the fixed, magnetic pole, which holds and rules the movements of the starry hosts in the realms of boundless space, leads for us that mighty procession of the stars of heaven. That world we call our sun.

As the spirit eye gazes on the scene, it beholds that wondrous and gigantic world blazing like an orb of fire, wrapped round with flames, dotted here and there with huge black spots; all resembling a world of volcanoes, sending forth flames, dimmed here and there with clouds of smoke of darkness impenetrable.

[“]So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female (man and woman) created He them,” and “called their name Adam.”

Shall we go back for millions of years, crawling and wiggling like the earth worms through the mire and mist of a chaotic mass, seeking to find the birth of man in infinite time, springing from protoplasms, called first forms, or first forms called protoplasms; back of which the constituent parts of these first forms had existed from eternity? When the scientist says: “Behold the first form of man, this little animal cell, which has been produced by some atoms to which the life of the earth has given birth” may we not ask: “Where did the matter and atoms that formed the cell come from? How many millions of years do we have to go back to find them? And, having found them, what gave them life and action?”

Can man fathom the depths of the infinite, or calculate the bounds of space, or count the stars of heaven or the drops of water in the oceans? Can he measure eternity? Suppositions, theories, and logic can not take away from the mind the darkness of blankness in which it becomes lost, when it attempts to know the infinite or to question infinity. But may not the Spirit of God in man, speaking to him by revelation and by the works of the infinite through and by the hands of nature and God's many agencies in earth, give us a glimpse of the spirit's realm, show us something of the spiritual, and give us visions, though dim, of that of which human wisdom can give no proof.

Then there is borne upon the spirit ear the sounds of dreadful thunderings, the grinding and crashing of earthquakes, the roaring of storms and of boiling and raging waters. Then there follows an explosion, which makes even space to tremble, and a mass of ragged, unformed and chaotic matter is torn off and hurled far from its former place, rushing, by the strength of the explosion and other tremendous force, away from its native home—away and away—until it reaches a point where the centripetal force holding it to the sun equals the centrifugal force driving it way; and there the two conjoining give it a position in our solar system, and send it whirling and flying in its path around the sun. And then, as the imagination gazes upon and broods over the scene through eons of ages, it sees this offshoot from the glorious star, which we call the sun, grow and develop in the planet which men now call The Earth.

Or imagination may see another and different picture: It beholds a wanderer of the skies, one of those vast and nebulous aggregations of gasses and matter more material and solid, which had travelled its erratic course, or courses, through the vast abyss, but guided by the hand and laws of Him, who orders the motions of myriads of unnumbered worlds through space, and growing more and more into a firm and compact body, drawing to the center of itself its far flung particles, as by the attraction of gravitation: imagination sees this wanderer among the stars drawn into a path around the sun, in which it runs for ages untold, until at last, by the oprations and effects of motion, and by the guidance and operation of the laws of The Infinite, the wandering comet becomes a planet of the solar system, ready for the creative hand of God to make it the home of Adam's race.

Then let us farther roam into the realms of mystery,
With spirit eyes reading the wondrous tale;
How out of chaos sprang a living world,
What time the morning stars together sang,
And Sons of God shouted for joy, and Earth
Slipped from her shroud of mist into the bright
Life-giving beams of an unclouded sun,
And blossomed with the bloom of Paradise.

     What though, for ages past, chaos enwombed,
A surging, seething, molten unformed man
Of living atoms, the embryo earth
Swing through its path in space around the sun.
Passing through nature's forming moulds, until
A hand divine wound up the clock of Time.
'Twas then, when Time began his count of years,
That out of darkness sprang a radiant world,
Made ready, by the Lord's creative hand,
For Adams race, the chosen sons of God.

     Hark to the Primal Word : Let there be light!
And then the greater light, which rules the day,
Shoots his hot rays through Earth's enshrounding gloom;
While liquid flame, the lightning flashing tongues,
Tears fiercely through and rends the vaprous veil
Enwrapped around the Earth's chaotic mass,
And cloud—impelling winds scatter afar
The misty screen, and all around, above,
The sun's bright beams shine through translucent Hue.

     Now hear the groaning and the travail cries
Of Mother Nature, bringing forth to birth
A wondrous world, as age to age unfolds
The mystic scene, when God The Spirit moved
Upon the face of waters wide and sent
The thrill of life—creative life—all through
An unformed mass; that, out of chaos wild,
The Earth should spring—a world of mysteries—
A world pulsating with mysterious life—
Germ—planted by the Lord's creative hand,
To mortal sense incomprehensible.

     Hark to the roaring, rolling thunder peals,
And mark the trembling of the groaning ground,
Whose depths (heat-tortured and inflamed) explode
And send forth mighty stream, of sulph'rous breath,
Breaking through Earth's torn shell, casting aloft,
Around, abroad, great jets of fluid flame,
And flooding areas vast with molten lakes
And rivers wide of lava hot, flowing
Far forth, like streams of melted metal bright.
The quaking Earth upheaves (with mighty groans
And rumblings sounding through its vast expanse)
From out the crust wrapped round its primal mass,
Great continents and islands fair to see,
And leaves a basin, wide an deep, to hold
The surging waters of the raging seas.

     Behold you mountains, bursting from the depths,
Lift up their fiery heads to meet the skies,
Where Nature's icy breath of upper air
Sends shivers through their frames, and melting arrows
Sputter and steam and hiss adown their sides.
Now see them shrink and crack and tear apart,
With thund'rous roar of earthquakes rolling wide,
Then freeze and cool into great rock-ribbed chains
And towering peaks, with valleys laid between,
Through which mad torrents pour—whence babbling brooks
Ripple along with gladsome songs and send
Their waters cool to quench the burning thirst
Of fire—new lands, upheaved from inner earth;
Against whose rock-formed shores white-crested waves
And billous rage and storm and beat in vain,
Held back within those bounds, divinely fixed,
Past which the restless oceans may not go.

     And now Dame Nature's fingers find employ,
And, with a mother's love, she clothes her child,
The new-born Earth, with vesture fair and bright.
See how she robes you vast expanse of hill
And plain and mountain range with leafy trees.
And yonder, round that towering height she hands
A cloak of evergreen and lays upon
Its lifted head a cap of crystal snow.
And there, in vale and dell, between the trees,
And there, on praries vast and steppes wide,
She lays rich carpets, soft and bright and green;
Where flowers bloom to glad the mother's eyes
And shed abroad their sweet and fragrant breath
As incense offered to Creation's Lord.

     Behold the growing wonders of the scene!
New forms come into sight—new forms of life—
A great array of breathing, moving things—
Short-living players on a world-wide stage,
That tell a little tale and pass away.
But yonder, in a beautious garden's bounds,
A creature roams, god-like of face and form,
A being cast in Nature's noblest mould,
Given the gift of immortality—
A deathless soul—God's first great gift to man.

The wond'rous vision onward moves. Behold the man, the image of his creator, is given dominion over the fishes of the sea, the fowls of the air and of every living thing that moves and creeps on earth. They are brought before him that he may know and name them. He looks into their eyes and gazes on their forms[.] Between him and them there is an impassable gulf fixed[.] They are of the earth and so is he—made of the dust to which all flesh must return. But he is also a spirit in God's image; and the gulf of everlasting death is between the spirit-man and the animals into whose faces he looks. No smiling lips greet his gaze; no soul-light sparkles in any eye, no lines of intelligence wreathe any face, no immortal soul speaks to the immortal spirit within him, no heart beats for his heart, until the father God brings to his side a woman, and they stand before their creator as one in flesh and spirit, separate and distinct from every living creature in the earth and in the seas which encircle it.

To-day, when six thousand years have passed since Adam's natal day, we may watch the gambols of care free lambs and playful kittens; we may watch the forms and faces and eyes of the animals with which we are most familiar, and which man has most zealously endeavord to improve; and in not one of them can we find a new species, or the foundation for a new species, of which we may say, “Behold an animal protoplasm which has, by evolution, produced something new.[”] Over four thousand years ago, Abraham rode an ass over the plains of Messopotania, a prototype of the humble beast of burden, which we see to-day; a horse in these days of scientific reproduction, may be more handsome than one ridden by Hammurabi before the days of Abraham, but he is still a horse.

If the earth, by evolution of protoplasms, turned cells into men, through a process of natural changes, going on from a lower to a higher order, why is it that, in the thousands of years of history, we are unable to trace the descent of any man, or race of men, in all its pages, evolved from some lower type? If men, being mere animals, were evolved from lower types, why is it that some being or animal, commenced ages of years ago, did not come into his adult form, by the process of evolution, within the three or four thousand years last passed? Why did those protoplasmic, creative cells, with their subsequent modifications, cease their operations of or by evolution with the dawn of history, and not produce a single animal that can be shown as having descended from and been formed by a protoplasm by the process of evolution?

Why is it that no scientist has been able to trace the life, growth and development of a single protoplasm and say: “Here is a living, moving breathing thing, whose descent we can trace, without speculation and supposition, without theory and hypothesis, back to a protoplasm, the existence of which is no longer a guess, all doubts having been solved?[”]

It is said that we, who do not agree with these scientific gentlemen; who question their findings, have doubts of their conclusions and say: “Show us,” are ignorant, narrow and several other uncomplimentary things. It is true, or ought to be, that the general man has not so much scientific knowledge as these wise scientists; but the general herd usually is more practical. The general run of men have common, hard, every-day, practical sense; while some or many of the learned ones live and move in the mysteries of science and forget or fail to understand the practical: like the learned Dr. —, who said that his cow was the cunningest thing in the world, for, if he fed her well, she gave a good deal of milk; but, if he did not, she would give scarcely any. So we, who plod along with hoes in our hands, or with such other implements as our several callings force us to carry and work with, and have whatever we learn coupled, for the most part, with the practical; do not pretend to match our knowledge and learning against that of these scientific searchers after mysteries; but we do demand practical proof of these mysteries which they say they have solved. We say: “Show us—not by learned hypotheses and long arguments, but by some concrete example.”

An answer which some one proposes is, that horticulturists have so handled and cultivated certain vegetables and fruits that they have produced new species of them. These producers, it is said, have assisted nature and hastened evolution; so that, in a short time, comparatively speaking (as compared with the former ages consumed by such protoplasms in taking on their adult forms, if unassisted), the original and inferior grains, fruits, vegetables, etc., have grown into new species; into new sorts and kinds by the law of evolution.

But what has all of this to do with evolution—with the descent or growth from a lower to a high type—a higher order of life? Is not the vegetable, still a vegetable, though of an improved sort. Is not the so-called new species of an apple, still an apple; though of greater beauty and higher flavor? Is not the improved article the same grain, or fruit or vegetable; to the growth of which human intelligence has added something which it lacked—something outside of itself, which fed and strengthened its existence and growth; and which it would not have gained if left to itself?

An oak tree stood on the top of a range of mountains. It was cut down and examined. The butt of the tree, where it was sawed off about a foot from the ground, was about sixteen inches in diameter, and the rings counted on the stump showed that it was much over a hundred years old. Down in a hollow, where the land was rich and water plentiful, there was another oak of the same age and species; but its diameter was more than twice that of the tree on the mountain. That on the mountain top was not fit for lumber of any kind, except of the lowest grade. The other yielded a large amount of brands fit and suitable for the finest grades of furniture. If these trees descended, or ascended, by evolution from a protoplasm which would grow an oak of that species, what made the difference between the trees? Why did not that which grew into a tree make one a scrubby black oak and the other a fine white oak, instead of making both white oaks, with one superior to the other? Any woodman there would tell you that the differences between the trees was caused by the fact that one was on the top of the range, in thin land, where the want of water and freezing wintry blasts stunted it; while the other was in a rich and moist spot, not subject to such intense cold as the other, so that it grew to perfection.

So the protoplasm of a tree, if there be such a thing—the first form or grown from which it springs and grows, if it be a thing of life, would be dependent on the food it got—the ingredients in the soil and in the water, etc., which would send forward its life, and the poor little protoplasmic life, or foundation for life, would follow the time demanded by such ingredients—that which nourished this first life and gave it action; by that which fed and expanded it; and the little germ, without power to direct its own modifications, its expansion and growth, and being driven along by that which gave it nourishment, would take such course as its environment might impose on it, and finally ascend into its adult form as a tree, a monkey, a donkey or even a man. This may seem absurd, but, if the protoplasmic germs are to ascend for ages, before being developed into their adult forms; and, if men can hasten or retard their development, and can so modify and control their growth and the forms they are to take as to make them of different species; it is evident that their ultimate adult forms must be directed, fixed and fully developed by the conditions surrounding them, and we may conclude that everything living—man, beast, bird, fish, reptile and insect—sprang from one original protoplasm, from one physical foundation and developed into the adult life conferred upon it by its environment—all from one little leather bottle, or myriads of bottles of the same kind or nature, containing minute germs of life, which their surroundings send along to various adult forms; so that man, monkey and all have one parentage. Yet here we shall meet with trouble, for some prying person will ask: “Where did the little germ, the little leather bottle, the protoplasm come from?” And this question no one seems able or willing to answer.

There can be no doubt that he who causes tow or more blades of grass to grow where only one had grown before; who improves and makes more prolific the grain that feeds human beings, who changes the form and native of fruits and vegetables and makes them better for man's use, does more for the good of the human race than has ever been done by all the politicians that ever lived. So, if the accomplishment of these things constitute evolution; if such accomplishments define the science of evolution, as being concrete examples or illustrations of the meaning of such science; then I, for one, say, let the good work go on. This sort of evolution does not and cannot contradict Revelation. On the contrary it is evidence of the mind which Revelation tells us God gave to men, and helps us to believe that God breathed into man the intelligence, the mind, which enables him to use the tools, the things of nature, as means to reproduce, improve and modify nature's products; so that the mind, the God in man, using nature's instruments does the work of creation; nature itself assisting in that work.

The first chapter of Genesis reveals the command: And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit. Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life, and fowl that fly above the earth. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, the cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth after his kind. And God greated great whales and every living creature that moves, and He made all the beasts of the earth and cattle—out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field and fowl of the air.

Genesis gives the first revelations from God to man. At least we have no record of any earlier ones. It expresses in the revelation given, the will of God to men. It is called the first part of the will of God, or the first book of the Old Testament. It is a statement of that which He deemed it proper for men to know, and which they could not know except by revelations from Him who knows all things; and he expects us to make use of our God-given intelligence to interpret His will or revelations, and depend on His care for our spiritual selves, to show us how to carry His will into effect—in other words, to have faith in Him.

And so, resorting to the well known rule for the intepretation of written instruments, we must take the whole will, or whatever the instrument may be, and give a meaning to every word used, if possible. For instance, it is said that God commanded the earth to bring forth living creatures, and it was so, viz that the earth brought them forth—that they came into existence; and in the same chapter and connection it was said that God made them, and that He formed them of the dust of the ground.

So Genesis no more tells us that God created living and moving creatures, that He made or formed them, than it tells us that the earth brought them forth at the command of God. These statements would seem to be contradictions, if not reconciled; but it is easy to do this, when we say and see from the account given that the Spirit of God was moving upon the face of the land and the waters, and that the work of creation was being done by the operation of that Spirit upon the things of nature, infusing into them the principle of life, which operating upon the things which had been dormant, brought them to life in the myriads of forms seen on the earth. So the earth brought forth living things, and yet the Lord God, by his Spirit created them. He performed those creations by use of natural means, as the tools and agencies in His hands, and so employed—tools, means and agencies used by an omnipotent and all-wise God, guided by design and purpose; and it makes no difference whether the life so given became an adult form, a perfected creature in ten minutes, or in ten thousand years, time having no relation to God as Creator.

So, as it was by the Spirit, which moved on the face of the earth, infusing the prnciple of life into the things of nature, that the earth and water brought forth fruit and herbs, and the living things already spoken of; and as God breathed into man a portion of His Spirit; it would seem that man might perform a work of creation, by the use of natural means, by his intelligence—the Spirit of God in him—bringing into conjunction elements that would form life, perhaps of a new kind, or which would be merely an improvement in a species already existing. But man cannot by the breath of his spirit give life of even the lowest order. Still, by his mind, his intelligence, he may apply one thing having life to another, and make one an improvement of the other; or, perhaps, create something new; if such an operation can be called creation.