| Show BEECHER ON TIlE BIBLE Its Scientific Discrepancies an Argument Ar-gument in Favor of Evolution NEW YORK June 10A large part of Mr Beechers discourse in his lecture on The Bible and Evolution consisted in additional addi-tional illustrations by new applications of the doctrines recently introduced by him He made a special point however of the statement that any endeavor to dethrone the influence of the Scriptures would be resisted by everything that is best in men but that THE INTERPRETATION OP THE DIVINE BEVELA TION BY EVOLUTION Would free the book from fictitious claims which have led commentators into intellectual intellect-ual dishonesty in endeavoring to explain or defend them The fruit which makes the Bible the tree of life to men is its conception of the one God the highest reached by human consciousness As the morning sun rolls over the fields forests flowers and fruits which itself has created so the Bible moves along men netted all over with the sweetest and tenderest emotions of the soul which it has created as the revelation and the voice of God All theories of the nature of the sun may be assailed but the sun shines on and does not care for them All theories respecting the history and structure of the Bible may be mocked and disputed but there it remainsthe book whose fruits rise higher smell sweeter taste more flavorsome flavor-some inspire more health than any or all others that have ever been produced What has the revelation of Gods method of unfolding un-folding creation in it that can touch the inward in-ward life of the sacred Scripture What if miracles be set aside as I do not think they need to be What if there be anachronisms to be found as I unquestionably there are What if dates do conflict What if the early notions of astronomy are Vroved to be erroneousas they are What if SIX LITERAL DAYS OF CBEATION BE NO LONGER TENABLE And they are not except by a dishonest twisting of mens intellectual faculties What if the poem of Eden prove but a poem and the legends of our first parents be shown to be but the imagination of a childlike age How will the divine developments develop-ments and fruits of the spirit recorded in this book be changed God will be the same humanity will be the same These are facts exterior to the Scripture The needs of man will be the same and the supply sup-ply provided will be the same All that which the Bible has gained and set forth to the world is untouchable by any skeptical science The true science the science of I real knowledge in the hands of honest men far from setting aside the word of God so is its corroborates that which step by step I interior life and its real power On the theorv of the plenary inspiration of the bookW the Bible Is already set aside JL uom believe that any honest man thoroughly familiar with the word of God believing it spoken by God directly the holy men was and the thoughts and feelings inspired by him and put into the minds of the men that them that every word is divinely authorized spake honest thorized do not believe any man and consistent can keep himself from going INFIDELITY HEADFTEST INTO THE GULF OF there it is because he is And if he doesnt go too Mr stupid Beecher proceeded to show how the theory had proved that the Copernican inspired writers of the Bible were not divinely spired as to the truth of their astronomical had done like statements and that geoiogy uuu uuuo ti v I He creation wise in regard to the period of declared that the intellectual dishonesty employed such discrep in trying to reconcile ployed ancies would cease if a false and vicious verbal inspiration were theory of plenary He wished it borne in mind abandoned definition that the Bible itself never gives any of what inspiration is It recognizes nition from has proceeded that Scripture the fact in the influence the inspiration of God but what way Holy men spake as they were the Holy Ghost but how were moved by moved These points are not settled then Mr Beecher thou ht it impertinent by Scripture to advance the plenary inspiration pertinent which implied that God could only theory results by thrusting his ideas make known and words into the speech of man There is another theory which not only BY RECONCILING IT SAVES THE BOOK other revelations of God in nature With the thousand criti frees it from a which but objections and is valid and is cisms and maintain the integrity of the sufficient to universal that God is the life book It assumes is activity l versal that whatever has life or remotely connected with the na directly or being How God infuses ture of Gods own one knows It is somewhat par himself no small measure of comparison allel although by a that which every man is conscious parison with creatures of In are v 0 scious of We know we un ujctn and that the qualities volition telligence and the organization of inhere in some way in tell what the but can anybody the body the connection between id or of vitality principle and the brain or of tween mind operation We know that we have any of the organs to physical laws subject a physical body and pervading it that in that and we know something that is not somehow there is also I most effectual and is the matter and that element in us And that characteristic day has only to about every which we carry analogy of that be enlarged to become the an connection that which is yet granderthe ed universe and > the developed subsists between divine thought and of the the ever presence which makes will This is not pantheism GOD THE UNIVERSE IN ITS TOTALHX A uwu tolerated as that being I cannot conceive explanation of but not an a poetic dream itself the more inexplicable in is difficulties for it God he is the from plicable All laws the issue universe is a perpetual life of the world mind of God yet God is outgoing from the universe in his material from this separable and method existence between the Having drawn this analogy operations of the I the mind of man and proceeded to elaborate Deity Mr Beecher of the Bible inspiration his theory that the the record of the consisted in its being Mind upon the human I action of the Divine has raised man from the consciousness that unfoldui by step barbarism step aria lowest reason and moralities social laws graces race that has spirituality It is the human was lived first Bible been inspired and the afterward In made and the record of it who feared to those to conclusion he said showing its true struct impair the Bible by wuld ever be raised ure that no hand of the Bible the parts against the essential trust gentleness and longsuffering teachings of love which were to unite the qualities suffering the world by bonds of the heart |
