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Show SERMON IS ON EVOLUTION AD SIN The concluding sermon upon '"Evolution '"Evo-lution and Sin" was delivered last evening in First Presbyterian church, tho theme being "The Teaching Concerning Con-cerning Death." Mra. Joseph Taylor Young sang the evening solo and .Miss Beatrice Ha-mil Ha-mil rendered the violin offertory. Rev. Mr. Carver said in part: Fichte says "All death in nature is birth, and at the moment of death appears ilsably the Hsin? of life. There is no dying principle in nature, for nature throughout is unmixed life, which concealed behind the old, begins again and develops Itself. Death and birth is simply the circling of lire In Itself, in order to preAcnt itself ever more brlghtlv and more like ta Itself." It-self." All death is not physical. Thero Is a death of affection, faith, hope, honor, and all the higher life of man as real as the death of the body. Such death is the wages of sin and the separation separa-tion from God. There are many aspects as-pects to Ibis reality of life. It is the nhersal testimony of b'olcgv and rcology that death has been on the y 'i from the be? inning of tho ap-i,e.iance ap-i,e.iance of life. The fossil remains an tho remains of animal creation in each strata of rock s'ure tho Tertiary Ter-tiary f-rmations wen developed seem to prove this. Mathcson says: "Thon-ands "Thon-ands of years before the existence of ..he human species, generations of llv-Ine llv-Ine creatures came and passed away. Mil they passed away by that precise method whereby human lives new disappear, dis-appear, the method of death." Now In?Fmuch as we read In Gen-es's Gen-es's that death was in some way a penalty f-T sin. wo must needs examine exam-ine the biblical meaning ot death. We have become accustomed to thinking of death as bodily death alone, but when wo look at tho scriptures clcse-ly clcse-ly we see this cannot be. for Jesus said: "He that liveth an J boKoveth in me shall never die," and Paul said: "The law of the spirit cf life In Christ Jcsu3 made mo free from the s.vt of death." But we know that good men and women die in the physical sense. Tho good and ovil allko die in physical sense and the'r bodies return to dust and their spirit unto the God who gav0 it. In the Bible life is not only union of body and bouI. but also union un-ion of soul with God and tho latter union is the more vital. The real death to be avoided is spiritual rather rath-er than physical. "Verily, verily, I say unto you," says Christ. If a man keep my word he shall never tee death." Those spiritually Joined with Christ dreaded physical death no more, for it had lost Its retributive and darkened character. Wclsman tells us that death la not at all universal; that the earliest organisms arc "potentially immortal." He tells us that an Immense number of the lower orjjanisms do not die. He has coined the phrase "Ihe immortality immor-tality of tho Protozoa.' In higher organisms where In conditions of life vary ho says 'that death is not a primary necessity, but that it has been secondarily acquired as an adaptation. adapta-tion. Death Is not so essential as some would have us think. It seems to have been acquired as an adaptation, as a mavk of new condition in lite. GeneslB, the New Testament, and tho latter words of science do not then contradict each other. They morely rLn on sepuarate plans; they are complimentary rather than antagonistic. antag-onistic. How shall we view death? In what terms shall we speak of it? Is It not a small part of a great plan rather than the termination of a short career. ca-reer. Viewed alone and as an end It i9 an awful fact, but viewed as the period of tranaltlon It Is a step In a progress. Birth. life, death, rosurrcc- , liou. immortality, are all connected ecnl8 in a soul's progress towards its I Intended goal. It is when the grave Is the end of life aud death the eternal eter-nal separation that it Is black and saddening. But God never intended It to be so. It is sin that makes It io. Make denth one of a connected series of facta and it has a deep meaning anil, message. Let us view death as a etep of pra-gress. pra-gress. This Is how evolution and biology bi-ology .view it. The soil that fsods the world owes its origin to the death of rock and life. The oU2 dies that the naw may Hvo,. As tht, 1b two in a physical sense with 113 the greater . fact is true that tho old life of this earthly homo dies that the new life In the eternal abodo may live. Not that the soul dies but that this llfo of earthly surroundings and conditions dies while the soul lives on. The lesson Is plain. Since death is a pure reality and we mtst each one lace it and meet it, let the standards by which wo desire to die bo the standards by which we shall now live. And ns only one book has a ical message mes-sage concerning death aud that which comes afterwards, let this Book become be-come tho food for our dally meditation medita-tion and giowing faith. |