My dear After all, men deceive themselves when they conclude that the acceptance or rejection of the gospel is an intellectual matter. It is only partly so. In immensely greater proportion it is a moral question: that is, a question of the relations of the soul to God; a question of one's individual responsibility as a sinner to a holy God. If I were to convince you by a chain of syllogisms of the truth of Christianity—that would be merely intellectual. The moral work—the reconciliation of your individual soul to God—would still remain to be done.
For you are a sinner. Needless is it to explain that this does not imply that you are either worse or better than other men, for "there is none righteous, no not one" (Rom. 3:1010As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (Romans 3:10)). But the realization of this, as regards myself, as an individual, is the beginning of Christianity in the soul. How glibly will men acknowledge that we are all sinners! But oh! how different indeed is the apprehension that there is an outstanding account between me and the Almighty, and that it is more than I am able to meet. Compared with this, the intellectual conviction of the truth of Christianity, is a small thing. You may have that, and yet not be a Christian at all (in the true sense of the word).
Since Christianity no one supposes an unholy God, though it was general before. But if a defiled and rebellious creature comes into judgment before a holy God the result can only be condemnation. Now this is man's true position: he is on the way to judgment, and a judgment that must be condemnation. “When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hail thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. I tell thee thou shalt not depart thence till thou halt paid the very last mite (Luke 12:58, 5958When thou goest with thine adversary to the magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 59I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite. (Luke 12:58‑59)). The apprehension of this serious truth affects profoundly a man's consideration of the gospel. If he wants a Saviour, there is a Saviour for him. If he is self-righteous, then he can afford to stand and dispute about the claims of Christianity. He can reject it, and go looking around the world for the best-seeming religion it can offer. But a Saviour is found in Christianity alone. New Theology has none.
Now, my dear friend, you will detect that instead of entering upon a philosophical discussion, I am putting before you the homely gospel of the salvation of the soul-for I am deeply convinced that, Christianity being true, we only need the proper moral focus, to see the glorious orb in its beauty, and this is what the Lord Jesus said in other words: "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God" (John 7:1717If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. (John 7:17)).
However, having put this, the plain gospel before you, I must not altogether refuse your challenge, lest doing so should be translated as weakness. You refer to evolution as a "great fact," and ask my attitude towards it. Well, you call evolution "fact." In my vocabulary it is theory; theory undiluted, theory pure. To illustrate. I heard a University authority lecturing, when he referred to the analogy between the anatomy of the bird and the reptile (with which, doubtless, you are familiar), pointing out that the bird was an advance upon the reptile. And this was mentioned as a case of evolution. Now the "fact" in this case is the analogy in the anatomy of the two; that is the truth; true science. But that the one species sprang from the other is pure assumption-pseudoscience. One is true Baconian philosophy; the other is—well, evolution! And when you place your "evolution" on the same platform with gravitation, the Copernican system, or the sphericity of the earth, you must excuse me if a smile—yes, a broad smile—overspreads my countenance!
But in this opinion do not suppose that I am singular. Professor Mivart, late Professor of Biology in University College, London, says, "With regard to the conception as put forward by Mr. Darwin, I cannot truly characterize it except by an epithet I employ with great reluctance. I weigh my words, and have present to my mind, the many distinguished naturalists who have accepted the notion, and yet I cannot call it anything but a puerile hypothesis.”
Dr. Etheridge, of the British Museum—a famous paleontologist—says, "In all this great Museum there is not a particle of evidence of transmutation of species. Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation, and wholly unsupported by fact. This Museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views.”
Professor Lionel S. Beale—who, you are aware is in the first rank of scientists—says, " The idea of any relation having been established between the non-living and living, by a gradual advance from lifeless matter to the lowest forms of life, and so onwards to the higher and more complete, has not the slightest evidence from the facts of any section of living nature of which anything is known. There is no evidence that man has descended from, or is, or was, in any way specially related to, any other organism in nature through evolution or by any other process. In support of all naturalistic conjectures concerning man's origin, there is not at this time a shadow of scientific evidence" (June, 1903).
The late Professor Sir Frederick McCoy told me with his own lips that he rejected Darwinism and evolution. From all this, my dear—, while I am one who refuses absolutely to accept evolution, I can afford to pass by your rather broad assertion that those who deny evolution are in the same category as those who reject gravitation or the Copernican system, or who say that the earth is flat.
But the German scientists are beginning to have their eyes opened. Professor Fleischmann, of Erlangen, in his book, "Die Darwin's Chetheorie," states that "the Darwinian theory of descent has, in the realms of nature, not a single fact to confirm it. It is not the result of scientific research, but purely the product of the imagination." In "Die Maschinentheorie des Lebens," Driesch declares, "Darwinism belongs to history as does that other curiosity, the Hegelian philosophy. Both are variations on the theme How one leads an entire generation by the nose '—and are not exactly calculated to exalt our parting century in the eyes of later generations." Edward von Hartman says, in "The Passing of Darwinism," “In the first decade of the twentieth century it has become apparent that the days of Darwinism are numbered.”
But though I may smile at being classed with earth flattists because of my rejecting evolution, I now come to something too serious, too sad, for anything but the most solemn consideration. On the basis of such a thing as evolution you abandon God's blessed gift to mankind—the Bible! I cannot refrain from the poet's exclamation: —
O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!”
For such a thing as evolution you give up the historical truth of the Creation and the Fall of man; also, the loving and marvelous interposition of God for man's salvation by means of the Incarnation and Redemption! You reject the atonement for evolution! The historical record in the Gospels and the Acts of the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ—all are to vanish at the word Evolution!
Excuse my giving way a little bit to feeling; bat as one who has known you for so many years, and who, along with recollection of old times, has for you the feelings of sincere friendship—as one, too, who thinks of the eternity—that solemn eternity which has come so near to us, I would ask you to reconsider your position. What I would humbly counsel and recommend to you is, to get down upon your knees and ask God's forgiveness for your hitherto rejection of His Son; for your morally siding with those whose cry has come down to us through the centuries—a voice borne along by one generation to another down to our own times, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him." Do not flatter yourself that you can be neutral. You must take sides. At this moment you are on one side or the other!
“He that is not with me is against me." "No man can serve two masters.”
Would you like to go into eternity as one who belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ? Now is your time to decide. Do not allow the enemy of your soul to befool you with such things as evolution or other empty and vain substitutes for the truth.
Darwin cannot give you eternal life: the Lord Jesus Christ can.
Believe me, my dear —
Yours very sincerely,
E. J. T.