hand to heaven and says: "I live forever!" Yet the invisible things of Him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen in them all being understood by the things. that are made. The whole earth is full of his glory. They all-Marduk, Osiris, Ioskeha, Allah, Ormuzd, are but forms of One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in them all. "Why asketh thou after my name," he warns us, "seeing it is secret?" It has ever been the glory of God to conceal a thing, for he pleases to do great things past finding out, yea, and wonders without number. The Lord has always said that He would dwell in the thick darkness. His way is in the sea, His path in the deep waters and His footsteps are not known. Verily thou art a God who hidest thyself! Thus it is as Cleanthes sang: "Chiefest glory of deathless gods, Almighty forever, Sovereign of Nature that rulest by law; What name shall we give Thee? Blessed be Thou, for on Thee should call all things that are mortal, For that we are Thine offspring; nay all that in myriad motion Lives for its day on the earth bears one impress-Thy likenessupon it, Wherefore my song is of Thee and I hymn thy power forever." So when the outraged fundamentalist anxious for the Ark of God accuses the "materialistic" scientist of atheism because though he casts out devils "he followeth not after us," each may renew his confidence in the other's faith upon thee foundation of the Unity of Unities. "Do you mean to say that I am an atheist simply and a teacher of Atheism?", asked the immortal Socrates of his accusers. "I mean the latter, that you are a complete atheist," replied Meletus. "Do you mean that I do not believe in the God-head of the sun or moon which is the common creed of all men?" "I assure you, judges, that he does not believe them; for he says that the sun is stone and the moon earth "I do believe that these are gods and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I commit my Cause." Thus it is that the deepest thinkers of all ages have united in a hymn of praise to God, each interpreting Him after his own fashion and according to his own knowledge each perceiving Him as through a glass, darkly, each weaving around Him the knowledges of his day and each perceiving but not comprehending the infinite reality of the Unity of Unities. Perhaps no one of them all has ever expressed this thought in a more masterly way than that ancient Egyptian author of the "Hymn to the One God" written milleniums ago: (translated by E. A. Wallis Budge.) "God is One and Alone, and there is none other with him. God is the One, the One who has made all things. God is a Spirit, a hidden Spirit, the Spirit of Spirits, the great Spirit of Egypt, the divine Spirit. God is from the beginning, and has existed from the beginning. He is the primeval One, and existed when as yet nothing existed; He existed when as yet there was nothing, and whatever is, He made it after He was. He is the Father of beginnings. God is Eternal. He is everlasting, and without end, Perpetual, Eternal. He has endured for endless time, and will exist henceforward forever. God is hidden, and no one hath perceived His form, no one hath fathomed His likeness, He is hidden in respect of Gods and men, and is a mystery to His creatures. God is the Truth, He lives by Truth, He lives upon the Truth, He is the King of Truth. God is Life, and man lives through Him alone. He bloweth the breath of life into their nostrils. God is Father and Mother: the Father of fathers, and the Mother of mothers. God begets, but He is not begotten: He gives birth to, but is not given birth to. He begets Himself, and gives birth to Himself: He makes, but is not made. He is the Creator of His own form, and the fashioner of His body. God is the Creator of Heaven and earth, the deep, the water, and the mountains. God stretches out the heavens, and makes firm the earth beneath. That which emanates from His heart is performed immediately, and when He has once spoken, it actually comes to pass, and he is the progenitor of all deities. God is compassionate to those who fear Him, and hears those that cry unto Him. He protects the weak against the strong. God knows those who know Him. He rewards those who serve Him, and protects those who follow Him." THE WILL OF WILLS There is a voice that calls me on and on; There is an urge compelling me to go; There is a hand that beckons me, alone, To whispered secret which I fain would know. O God of Dreamers, thine the tug that draws Our faltering footsteps toward the purple hills, Till all that we have sought we find, because CHAPTER XXIII. THE NEW KNOWLEDGE AND THE OLD FAITH Through earth's unhappy maelstrom of opinion and doubt, the stroke of modern science is sure. Master minds from all the fields of discovery; astronomy, geology, biology, palaeontology, embryology, anthropology, and from many others are united in their confession of faith which is embraced in that superb generalization called "evolution." In the warm sunshine of its radiance old traditions and dogmas disappear like the ice-floes in the Gulf Stream. But with them the very foundations seem to be destroyed until the righteous exclaim "What shall we do?" The theory is assailed by some of the best of living men as "damnable heresy," not only, but as "rotten morals" and as conducive to every terrible and evil result. It is described as a cancer eating at the vitals of pure religion and as the mother of unbelief and godlessness. In some sections of the country for a minister of the gospel to refer to the theory of evolution favorably in a sermon would mean immediate attack on the part of the majority of the membership of his church and his instant resignation or exclusion from the pulpit. This union of blind religiousdevotion and blind scientific ignorance is absolutely deadly. An address delivered in Atlanta as this chapter is written epitomizes this attack stating that "Evolution as a theory is paganistic in its origin, atheistic in its character, beastialistic in its science (sic) and has no place in the scientific world." Even state legislatures have outlawed this "atheistic hypothesis" while school boards and boards of directors of colleges and universities have unseated members of their faculties who "teach and sanction this form of Paganism." And yet so far as we know, there does not exist in the world any great astronomer who does not believe in stellar evolution. So far as we know, there does not exist on earth a great geologist who does not believe in the evolution of the physical form of the earth. So far as we know, there does not exist in the whole academic world a half-dozen distinguished biologists who do not accept as true, in some form, the general theory of the evolution of life as originally propounded by Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin and modified by the opinions of such men as Lamarck, Weissman, Huxley, Mendel, DeVries, Osborn and others. So far as we know, there does not exist a single palaeontologist in the whole world who does not believe in the palaeontological evolution of the present forms of earth-life. And so far as we know, there does not exist, anywhere, a modern master of human embryology who does not believe in the evolution of the individual human body from a microscopic cell. Pertinent to this anti-evolution agitation two remarks may be made. The first is that while men have become wise enough to consult experts on problems of medicine, dentistry, war, agriculture, etc.; these anti-evolution agitators prefer to use their own judgement on this subject. although it involves a multitude of abstruse and technical details. The other is that the situation is still further most unhappily embarrassed by the fact that, generally speaking, scientists do not regard religion as within the sphere of their expert training or within the proper field of their discussion and, although they are in many cases deeply religious men, their professional silence on the subject which they consider necessary creates in many minds the impression of indifference or opposition to religion. They further resent the invasion of their special field of investigation by ignorant blunderers and are apt to apply terms, which, however, appropriate, are nevertheless harsh to those who thus proclaim their unfitness to engage in an argument on a subject which would seem above all others to require expert training, exact knowledge and a dispassionate weighing of evidence. Fortunately there remain a few who love both science and religion and who endeavor, as is being done herein, to mediate between these two equally important branches of human interest. After all this "conflict" is, when properly understood, highly gratifying. For we must never forget that if the world is to go forward some must necessarily precede. He whom God honors by imparting to him the new truth must tell it to others. First he wins a dozen disciples then seventy, then a whole world. But if his discourse have anything to do with religion from the day on which he steps out of line he is a marked man. Sometimes it is a cup of hemlock, sometimes a shower of stones, sometimes epithets and anathemas, sometimes a cross. Both before and since the day when the greatest iconoclast of all was called Beelzebub, no man may go far in advance of his fellows. They |