234 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE, 



have neglected duty and yielded to temptations, to unchastity, Sabbath-breaking,, 

 over-reaching in business, untruthfulness and the like. 



THE REASONS WHY 



Unbelieving scientists have been able to damage faith, are easy to find. 



Q ' I. They have beforehand, the natural heart predisposed to reject Christianity — 



, "the evil heart of unbelief," "the carnal mind which is enmity against God." 



2. The unpleasant stringency of God's laws stimulates unbelief. When the- 

 Bible forbids a man to do what he very much wants to do, he is prepared to ac- 

 cept bold assertions that the Bible is a discredited book. 



3. The greatness and vagueness of the field of view, help to damage faith. 

 Very few, indeed, have time to examine for themselves long enough to form in- 

 dependent conclusions. The confident objector comes forward on the platform, 

 or on the page of the review, and says ' ' We have been investigating a region where 

 you are utterly unable to follow us, and we have found that belief in a God is a 

 foolish superstition. We have utterly demolished the credit of the scriptures and 

 exploded the behef in miracles." Such bold assertions have more or less effect, 

 and the din of incessant repetition has more effect still. Rabshakeh stands to-day 

 outside the walls of Jerusalem, and blows his horn in the name of the Sennacherib 

 of modern science, and calls aloud for surrender. 



" Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the cave-dwellers 

 and the anthropoid apes, and the orohippus and the mesohippus ? Where are 

 the Ornithocelidans and the Compsognathus Longipes ? Toss your Bibles over 

 the walls and turn your churches into theatres • for we are coming to baptize you 

 in the slimy Bathybius, and the Lord is powerless to deliver you out of our 

 hands." This Rabshakeh- talk has some effect for evil upon the unlearned. 



4. The foolishness of the saints also is the cause of some of the mischief 

 which we deplore. The actual and indisputable advances in scientific knowledge 

 have often met among God's people, with stupid denial. 



Exploded theories of the interpretation of parts of the Bible have been clung 

 to as though the theories were the Bible itself. This stupidity has brought con- 

 tempt on religion. 



Some scientific conclusions should be accepted and joyfully welcomed, be'- 

 cause they are settled and sure. Other conclusions ought neither to be accepted 

 or rejected. Toward them we should take a " waiting attitude " until they come 

 into a clearer light. 



For example, it is stupid now to deny that there may have been in the origin 

 of man, a sort of creative or theistic evolution. Whether true or not, the current 

 of probability is running so strongly in that direction, that a stern and unvarying 

 rejection of every form of that theory is bigoted and hurtful. 



It is not wisdom to insist that every good Christian shall believe that the 

 omniscient and wonderful Creator formed the body of Adam, as a child would 



