KE VOLUTION VS. EVOLUTION 
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and maintained the middle ground. Progress, even to the 
attainment of the new heaven and the new earth, even to that 
glad day when all men shall be enrolled in the kingdom of heaven, 
is the result of growth and evolution; but the long summer of 
development bears fruit in the autumn of harvest; the era of 
quiet progress paves the way for a climax of fruition; long ages 
of slow preparation, so slow and inconspicuous as to appear 
negligible to the superficial observer, finally achieve results 
with startling suddenness. Lest his hearers spring to arms with a 
frenzied desire to sweep their fellowmen without delay into 
his new kingdom under penalty of death if they refuse to enter 
there, he calmly, dispassionately speaks of the seed-time and 
the leaven, the gradual growth of the tree and the long summer 
of increase. Lest they become impatient of delay, discouraged 
with the apparent paucity of achievement, he turns their atten- 
tion to the harvest-time when the results of growth are tested 
and rewarded according to their merits, he speaks of the closing 
moments of an era when the pulse of life is accelerated and pre- 
paratory development attains fruition in new opportunities for 
further progress. 
It is as though the humble Carpenter of Nazareth had with 
the student of life development surveyed the river of life and 
had seen it sweeping quietly, irresistably onward to plunge in a 
cloud of spray over the brink of a cataract, then to stagger for 
a moment before it regains its sense of direction and slips silently 
ahead into another long reach of steady movement. The 
lesson from the past is clear. The progress of life has been a 
result of evolution and of growth, quiet, unassuming, slow; but 
ever and again progress has been revolutionary in its nature, 
and by virtue of abundant preparation there has come a time of 
swift attainment, a climax of success. Revolutions in the past 
have been truly catastrophic for those organic strains whose 
preparation has been inadequate, but in the progress of life 
as a whole they have been merely minor incidents, a quicken- 
ing of the pulse, an acceleration of the continuous process of 
evolution. 
