BAWy OF C RE ATI ox AND OF WORSHIP. 



879 



may find somewhere by charity a place as- 

 signed them, as appendage.^, perhaps only 

 as excrescences, of the material creation? 

 I contend that Evolution in its highest form 

 has not been a thing heretofore unknown 

 to history, to philosophy, or to theology. I 

 contend that it was before the mind of Saint 

 Paul when he taught that in the fullness of 

 time God sent forth His Son, and of Eusc- 

 blus, when he wrote the " Preparation for 

 the Gospel," and of Augustine when he 

 composed the " City of God " ; and, beauti- 

 ful and splendid as are the lessons taught 

 by natural objects, they are, for Christen- 

 dom at least, infinitely beneath the sublime 

 unfolding of the great drama of human 

 action, in which, through long ages, Greece 

 was making ready a language and an intel- 

 lectual type, and Rome a framework of 

 order and an idea of law, such that in them 

 were to be shaped and fashioned the des- 

 tinies of a regenerated world. For those 

 who believe that the old foundations are 

 unshaken still, and that the fabric built 

 upon them will look down for ages on the 

 floating wreck of many a modern and boast- 

 ful theory, it is difiicult to see anything but 

 infatuation in the destructive temperament 

 which leads to the notion that to substitute 

 a blind mechanism for the hand of God in 

 the affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of 

 remedial agency ; that to dismiss the high- 



est of all inspirations is to elevate the strain 

 of human thought and life ; and that each 

 of us is to rejoice that our several units are 

 to be disintegrated at death into " countless 

 millions of organisms " ; for such, it seems, 

 is the latest " revelation " delivered from 

 the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi. As- 

 suredly on the minds of those who believe, 

 or else on the minds of those who after this 

 fashion disbelieve, there lies some deep ju- 

 dicial darkness, a darkness that may be felt. 

 While disbelief in the eyes of faith is a sore 

 calamity, this kind of disbelief, which re- 

 nounces and repudiates with more than sat- 

 isfaction what is brightest and best in the 

 inheritance of man, is astounding, and 

 might be deemed incredible. Nay, some 

 will say, rather than accept the flimsy and 

 hollow consolations which it makes bold to 

 offer, might we not go back to solar ado- 

 ration, or, with Goethe, to the hollows of 

 Olympus ? 



" Wenn die Funke spruht, 

 Wenn die Asche gUiht, 

 Eilen wir den alten GOltern zu." • 



Tbanslation. 



" When the sparks glitter, 

 When the ashes glow. 

 We speed us to the old gods." 



Xineteenih Century. 



* " Braut von Corinth." 



