23. The in-coming of animal species must have left our 

 original potentially-endowed speck of protoplasm, myinads upon 

 myriads of ajj^es away, even according to the arguments of the 

 Darwinian school. 



24. But the animal, when evolved, could not have lived 

 without an atmospliere, neither could it have existed without 

 the plant especially adapted to its organization. Man eats the 

 ox, which derives its nourishment from grass; he also eats 

 wheaten bread, the produce of a grass. Destroy the grasses, 

 and man, with all other mammals, would perish off the face of 

 the earth. The bird feeds upon the fly, which comes from 

 maggots, nourished by ffesh, which again comes from grass ; 

 or it takes the caterpillar from the tree upon which alone 

 the caterpillar can feed. Again we come back to the plant: 

 I need not pursue this part of the argument further. 



25. Now mark ! The potentially-endowed plasm theory, 

 and that of evolution, require in all this no interference of 

 Divine Power. The sequence of events follows the laws im- 

 planted in the first plasm. The Creator of that plasm has 

 retired from the scene : there is no Providence in nature. 



26. But let me pause here, and ask in all humility, if the 

 whole theory of evolution and Darwinism is not placed out 

 of court by the necessity that an atmosphere should have been 

 created before the advent of life upon the globe ? Why should 

 the same Power which created the one be denied the power of 

 creating the other? Is the preparation for life to be considered 

 specially creative, and life itself to be perfected without the 

 supervison of the Creator ? The theory which allows the 

 Creative Wisdom to exist before the coming of life into the world 

 — exist, too, in all ihat grandeur^ sublimity, and power which 

 could form in an atmosphere the " breath of life — must indeed 

 be deficient in probability, much less in truth, if it does not 

 follow the same Creator into the great scheme of Life, Death, 

 aud Immortality. 



27. Following the evolutionist, I must now ask into wliat 

 animal form or forms was the vegetable first transmuted? 

 Upon this point the evolutionist is silent, for he has floated his 

 theory upon the unknown seas of speculation. 



28. In the vegetable world the plasm ^' has already worked 

 out wonders without end. It has evolved the thousands of 

 different forms which exist over the globe. It has adapted 

 each plant to its peculiar soil and climate ; it has provided each 

 plant with a distinct and often widely different mode of propa- 

 gating its own species. Some of the most beautiful provisions of 

 the kind have been pointed out by Mr. Darwin himself in his 

 admirable work on the Fertilization of Orchids. 



