the Biblical cosmogony. Is this so certain ? I am far from 
saying it lias yet been satisfactorily made out, or even that 
reasonable grounds have been shown for thinking it probable, 
that any rational beings in human or even in gorilla form did 
exist before Adam : but is it so clear from the words of the 
Bible that there could not have been a prior type of humanity 
which appeared and disappeared in one of those periods of 
mundane existence, anterior to the present state of things, at 
which Scripture hints, though it makes no definite revela- 
tion ? 
The same may be said with regard to a scientific theory, — 
or perhaps I ought more correctly to say hypothesis, — of the 
present day, without some allusion to which this paper would 
be thought incomplete : I mean that of Evolution. Is it satis- 
factorily shown that, as some will have it, the hypothesis is at 
variance with the teaching of Scripture ? True, many of those 
who hold and teach it combine with it the elimination of all 
design and intelligence from the great work of Nature, and an 
absolute denial of the Personality of the Creator. This part of 
their teaching is certainly inconsistent with Revelation. You 
cannot hold that God is a mere all-pervading force, and yet 
that “ in the beginning God created : ,3 you cannot reject 
design, and yet allow that “ He saw, and, behold, it Avas very 
good/’ But surely one need not maintain that an Evolutionist 
must be an Atheist or Pantheist, and cannot be a Christian ; 
one cannot see that Christianity is at all affected by the truth 
or falsehood of the Evolution theory, whether the latter be, as 
some say, a sham induction from misunderstood, distorted, 
inadequate, invented particulars, or, as others tell us, a physi- 
cal Gospel, an indubitable, irrefragable truth, supported by an 
absolutely complete induction from a perfect chain of Avell- 
ascertained and undeniable facts. It has not yet been shoAvn 
that the God of Scripture cannot possibly have Avilled to create, 
or rather to preserve and amplify His creation, according to 
the rule of Evolution. 
The growing intolerance Avhich characterizes the sceptical 
tactics should teach us to be tolerant, — liberal in tile best and 
truest sense of the word. Let us give our opponents full credit 
for endeavouring to seek the Truth. It is a hackneyed remark 
that Truth is many-sided : avc must not fail, therefore, to re- 
member that there is much more error and falsehood in negation 
than in affirmation. The science Avhich is unhappily opposed 
to us may be, — nay, most often is, — true after all : our adver- 
saries’ vieAv of the Truth is taken from a different stand-point 
to ours, so that they arc in the right Avlicn they affirm, and fall 
into deadly error only Avlicn they begin to deny ; and denial 
