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Show MISERABLE BEGlf J.MING OF US ALL. Well, at last and after many years, the Book of Genesis is coming to its own again. After rejecting reject-ing the fact of creation, relegating God into the unknown and unknowable, telling us that the universe uni-verse was self -evolved and that our noble selves were only developed monkeys or gorillas, scientists are now admitting that, after all is said and done, there may be something in the Biblical history of creation. Here is the dean of American naturalists, natural-ists, Dr. Theodore Nicholas Gill, said to be the most, learned of American biologists, admitting to a Salt-Lake Salt-Lake Tribune representative, that in the last analysis anal-ysis man did come from the "slime of the earth." Back in 1832 Benjamin Constant startled hisgenera-tion hisgenera-tion by the novel but not original theory that the first man was a savage. He published a book to prove his contention and after building up a wonderful structure of plausibilities, possibilities, sophisms and arguments, rested, his case. Constant, at once, like Theodas, "became somebody," and the Biblical doctrines of creation, of original sin, of Adam's supernatural instruction, of man's fall and redemption, redemp-tion, were relegated to the ashheap of exploded doctrines. doc-trines. . Then came Auguste Comte. who laughed to silence and folly Constant's absurdity. Comfp riddled with argument and appeals to reason and tradition the theories of Constant. Constant became be-came a nobody. Auguste Comte, in a series of wonderful won-derful chapters wonderful for their .ingenuity-proved .ingenuity-proved to his own satisfaction and toj that of the scientists of his time that man was evolved from an extinct animal which he called a hynur. And now Comte "became somebody." Then arose Charles Darwin, and by a phenomenal phenom-enal display of learning, the accumulation of years of research into the regions of air, ca and earth proved, this time beyond the possib4litv of doubt that the first man was a gorilla. At once th French savants and English scientists turned to the rising sun and adored. Charles Darwin weni to bed on the evening of May 19, 1861. a nobody, and on May 20, arose a hero and. oi course. "s somebody." t Well, for a time the English and Scotch had it all to themselves. Herbert Spencer, -tuart Mill-Professor Mill-Professor Huxley, Sir John Lubbock and an armv of lesser heroes poured hot shot and canister int , the breastworks of orthodoxy and the citadel of superstition. su-perstition. They declared with a laugh and a loud guffaw that the orthodox entrenchments were car- ried and the garrison annihilated. Such was the tremendous cannonade on the citadel that the billows bil-lows and clouds of smoke of exploded powder darkened dark-ened the heavens and hid the fortifications of Christianity. I Unable to see the citadel the army of freethinkers free-thinkers cheered lustily and proclaimed to the world that only the ruins of the Christian fortifications forti-fications remained. But in time the air purified itself and to the amazement of the invaders the citadel, fortifications and outerworks of the Chris tian fort were intact. Until now, the Americans were "nobodies," having no "somebody" amons them. Then out from the nobodies stepped I. W Draper, M. D., LL. D., and projected into the Christian Chris-tian camp a shell which he called "Human Physiology, Phys-iology, Statical and Dynamical." The explosion was awful; that is, the noise of the explosion, ami in the world of science, Professor Draper was, at once, a "somebody." It was thought that the exploding ex-ploding shell had ripped the Bible and the origin of man to shreds. But when the smoke disap-. peared and the reverberations were silent, the Bible was still there with every leaf intact. Well, this irritated Professor John Fiske of Harvard and he re-discovered the lost process of making eighteenth century hand grenades. lie threw three of these into the Christian camp and the apparent effects were frightful. Fiske declared de-clared that any one who could not see for himself that these grenades had shattered the structure of Christianity was blind, and as Fiske was now a "somebody," he had a large following. Even the night editors and beardless newspaper reporters cheered him and wished him increased glory and success. Professors Draper and Fiske carried the origin of man back to a molecule a tremendously small substance. They were getting back to Genesis, sure enough, and we all awaited the coming of another an-other "somebody." And now the apparition is here. Listen to this. Our ancestors before the ipe. "To go back beyond the mammals and fishes, amphibians and dipnoans, we are confronted with a vista of interminable length, through soft-bodied forms extremely different from anything now living, liv-ing, but resembling a skull-lessi translucent vertebrae, verte-brae, or a sea squirt which w ; find attached to stones and shells. Man's furtl :r ancestry 'is lost in an indefinite and innumera' Ie series of wormlike worm-like things belonging to the eai liest period of our earth's history." Thus saith Dr. Gill, who is now a "somebody." In 'the SCC01 versc it is recorded that "the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth," and as our scientists tell us that all plastic matter is teeming with life, the "worm-like thing" of the Dean of Naturalists waS without doubt, wriggling in the slime of the Garden Gar-den of Paradise. At last the Bible is found to harmonize with science, with physiology and bbd-. bbd-. ogy. It was a fierce conflict, but it's all over u,. Beyond the "worm-like thing" of the prof..Ui-i dean there is nothing, and we defy all the scientist-, on earth to make something out of nothing. Tw. thousand years ago the Christian church represented repre-sented by Peter and John was indicted for hen-. and summoned before the High Priest and tl, Council of the Jews. The Council was about :.. pass sentence of death on the apostles, when Gamaliel, Gam-aliel, a Pharisee, a doctor of the law, interposed and ordered the prisoners to be taken out of tho council hall and guarded. Then, turning to Cr-High Cr-High Priest and members of the Council, he said "Ye men of Israel, have a care what ye do wi:. these men. For before our time rose up Theoda , affirming himself to be a somebody, who was slaia and all who believed with him reduced to nothing-And nothing-And after this man rose up Judas the Galilean an-1 drew away the people after him; he al.-o perMi.-.i and all who followed him were dispersed. Now therefore refrain from these men (the apostle and let them alone; for if their religion be of m it will fall to nothing. But if it be of Co,!, y.,-. are not able to destroy it." So hammer away, gentlemen. What the winds and waves of human passion, at work tor tv thousand years, have failed to destroy, ma be blasted into fragments by modern ingenuity and "higher criticism." |
