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pre-Sabbatic races : they became degenerated. They fell into the condition 
of the races that were created originally in a state of degradation, and yet 
those pre-Sabbatic races, according to the Professor’s own hypothesis, were 
created in the image of the Elohim ! The Bible tells us that a single pair 
were created in a state of holiness and perfection, from which they fell, and 
that all who have succeeded them have consequently been bom in that fallen 
state. That is a plain honest statement by which I will stand, and I cannot 
find any contradiction of it in science, if you mean by science those facts 
which are displayed by the world itself. Trace back all past history, go 
among all the human races with which we are acquainted, and you will find 
that they all bear the sad impress of the fall of man from innocence. 
Nowhere will you now find perfect beings : there is always a want of harmony 
to be found amongst the human races in their moral development, which you 
do not find existing in any of the other parts of God’s creation ; and nowhere 
but in the Bible do you get anything like a full, plain, and accurate 
account of how such an awful jar or discord could have made its appearance 
in the creation of an all-wise and all-good God. I think natural theology 
proves indisputably that we are the creatures of a God of infinite wisdom 
and goodness ; and the Bible tells us that we have fallen from the state in 
which He created us ; but He has appointed a remedy by which the whole 
human race may be restored to their former position. One of the greatest 
proofs of man’s unity of origin is found in the effect which the truths of 
Christianity have exercised on mankind. The truths of Christianity have 
been found perfectly adapted to all races. There is no race which is too 
barbarous to be civilized, and there has never been such a civilizing influence 
in the world as the doctrines of Christianity. Christianity has shown itself 
capable of raising the most degraded savages to a state in which they were 
to be envied by the most highly cultivated. Take a child of the lowest Negro 
type — a child of the Fijian Islanders, or the child of a Bushman — and it has 
been proved over and over again that such a child can be made as good and 
upright a creature as any one among ourselves could be. I say, therefore, 
that all races of men are capable of being raised from degradation to high 
moral excellence ; and we find that there is no great and impassable gulf 
separating one race from another, and rendering one race more incapable than 
another of being raised to that high position in which man was originally 
created. I have the greatest possible respect and friendship for Professor 
Macdonald, and I trust he will not suppose that anything I have said 
to-night applies personally to him. I have a strong feeling of friendship for 
him, but I think these papers should be discussed fully and fairly. I am sure 
that in his own mind Professor Macdonald has the greatest reverence for 
the Bible, and would not willingly state anything which he thought would 
be offensive to those who hold their faith in that Bible as he does. But we 
must meet these questions on the grounds of pure science ; and I think he 
has failed to make out that his theory is a true interpretation of the Biblical 
record, or that it is supported in the least degree by any of the subsidiary 
sciences which he has not so much called in to his aid as simply referred to. 
Mr. Row. — I should like to ask Professor Macdonald how he accounts for 
