EVOLUTION 



for in the case of all past re- 

 cords, God has made it His 

 practice only to leave just 

 enough evidence to establish 

 the connection of the present 

 and the past, but has seldom if 

 ever completed the sequence, 

 so that the influence of the 

 past may not destroy the pre- 

 sent, and in the case of reli- 

 gious evolution this is even 

 more marked than in any 

 other case, as, for instance, no 

 sooner had Christ established 

 its final development, than 

 Jerusalem is condemned to de- 

 struction and the bulk of 

 the Jews are driven out 

 of Palestine, so that their 

 past beliefs may not pre- 

 vent the forward march of 

 Christianity; for it is a neces 

 sity of the evolution of all re- 

 ligious beliefs that they must 

 advance with, and adjust their 

 teachings to some extent to 

 suit the times, or, like all 

 things in Nature, that do not 

 advance, they cease to be the 

 fittest to suit the stage or age 

 of evolution, when they soon 

 deteriorate in practical utility, 

 and are discarded by the 

 people. But the truths worth 

 retaining become absorbed as 

 the ground work of some 

 better form of religious belief. 



AND GENESIS 31 



rule that all things grow 

 lighter and expand with heat, 

 and grow heavier and contract 

 with cold. But had no excep- 

 tion been made to this, in the 

 Epoch of Faith, the whole of 

 life would have become extinct 

 as the earth cooled ; for when 

 ice formed at the poles, it 

 would have sunk to the depths 

 of the sea and so cooled the 

 waters of the ocean that the 

 entire globe would have been 

 covered with ice and the land 

 would never have become fer- 

 tile. He therefore made the 

 first exception to His laws of 

 Evolution or Nature, and de- 

 creed that when the tempera- 

 ture declined to 39 degrees 

 the reverse should take place. 

 Again, in the second Epoch, 

 that of Hope or Religion, in 

 order to stamp His superior 

 power, He performs the second 

 miracle of Nature, the three 

 acts of redemption, and just 

 as by the first miracle He 

 established His prerogative to 

 rule the Spirit of the Power 

 of God the Father, for the first 

 period of His rule over Crea- 

 tion, so in the second Epoch 

 of Hope (or Love and Reli- 

 gion) He performs the second 

 miracle of Nature and makes 

 the second person of His 

 Trinity become man with- 

 out the assistance of man, 

 and so God asserted His 

 prerogative over the laws of 



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