Evolution as Related to Religions Thought. 321 



painfully wrought out by Darwin and Spencer. The church 

 in every period of its domination has held a mirror up to 

 the triumphant systems of philosophy and science. It has 

 reflected these. It has opposed each new departure ; it has 

 applauded each accomplished victory. It has been compared 

 to the prince who summoned his courtiers about him to see 

 the sun rise at his bidding. The moment it began to pee}) 

 above the horizon he said very solemnly, "Now rise ! " and 

 sure enough, it rose. But this comparison is too flattering 

 to the church. Its average disposition has been much 

 tardier than the prince's in the story. The sun of each new 

 day of science has had to climb all the way up to the meri- 

 dian before the Orthodoxy of the time has given in and said, 

 " I told you so ! " and proceeded to give chapter and verse. 

 The doctrine of Evolution is the last of Ave great scientiflc 

 dawnings since the mind of Christian Europe returned 

 upon the scientiflc mind of Greece in the 14th and 15th 

 Centuries. The flrst was the Copernican astronomy. Long 

 and hard the church insisted that if the earth was not 

 central to the solar system and the sidereal universe, there 

 was no God, no Christ, no revelation, no anything that relig- 

 ion had held dear. When it had to accept it, then it con- 

 cluded that it could, witliout detriment to any precious 

 thing. That the Copernican astronomy was absolutely fatal 

 to a theological scheme which held the earth to be the moral 

 centre of the universe there cannot, I think, be any doubt. 

 The moral centrality goes with the sidereal. However this 

 may be. Orthodoxy soon settled back into her old compla- 

 cency. Then Newton came announcing the law of gravita- 

 tion. This seemed to say the universe could go alone. The 

 theological dovecotes were again badly fluttered, but it was 

 not long before every dove in them was cooing Newton's 

 praise. The next great scientific discovery was geological 

 — the antiquity of the earth. E. C. 4004 was the accepted 

 reckoning, and the day was October 18th, if I remember 

 rightly. As many millions would not now be thought too 

 much. But at first the geologists themselves \#ere driven 

 back very slowly by the array of facts. Some of you can 

 remember the whole process of the church's caving in. At 

 first the new geology was denounced as sheer atheism. The 

 Bible said that the whole world was made in six days ; the 

 new geology that it lias been making many millions of years 

 and was not finished yet. Then came the fine discovery 



