Evolution

The Blackest form of Materialism.

Price 6d.

he darkest phase of Atheism is materialism, and the blackest form of materialism, is Evolution. When Rome was tottering to its fall, and when the heart of that mighty empire became corrupted, then Lucretius, nearly two thousand years ago, promulgated the damnable doctrine of materialism. He dressed up afresh the old tenets of Epicurus. It is a great mistake to imagine that modern materialism is a new creed. No. It is as old as the hills. It flourished in pagan Athens and Rome, when these began to decay. It is, indeed, the last stage of national degradation. But both Epicurus and his disciple Lucretius were pre-eminently men of genius and of taste and refinement. They tell us, with all the graces of rhetoric, how all things sprung into existence, without the creative hand of Deity. We are told that "At once the lion and the worm sprung from the teeming earth." I am not, indeed, sure but they would attribute a sort of higher generation to man; albeit they would not acknowledge, in the creation of Nature's chief work, a supernatural agency. Nor would they agree with the Poet when he sings:—

"Then, chief o'er all his works below,
At last was Adam made;
His Maker's image bless'd his soul,
And glory crown'd his head."

Nevertheless, their conceptions were as superior to the crude crochets of modern materialists, as the Sun is to a farthing candle. The reveries of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndal and Bain, are simply coarse distillations of the spirit of Epicureanism. They have nothing original in their compositions. They lack the talent—not to speak of genius—to dress up old ideas in a new fashion. Their imaginations are as dull as lead, and their intellects are as fat as grease, and dull as the clods, whence they draw their inspiration. Their minds are of the earth, earthy, and their aims—if they can be said to have any—are mean, vicious and contemptible. Their doctrines are debasing and demoralising. It is a pig's creed. Eat, drink, laugh and die. William Hurrell Mallock has written a very remarkable book on this question, to wit, "Is life worth living?" Upon the principles of Huxley, Tyndal, Clifford, Darwin, &c., he clearly asserts that life is not worth living. Such men—if men they ought to be called—altogether discard the immaterial, spiritual and moral nature of man, and take away his religious faith and leave him without any moral guidance. They deprive him of the superintending Providence of a personal God. They cast him adrift upon the stormy ocean of chaos without a compass, and without a helm, to guide his frail vessel. He is the port of circumstances—the creation of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Like a mote in the sunbeams he dances away for a moment, and disappears again for ever. When he sits down, in his banquetting hall, to partake of a feast, he should, like the ancient Egyptians, place a human skull on the centre of the board, labelled with this inscription—"vain as vanity are we." Oh, it is a dreary, cheerless and forlorn creed! Without God and without hope, either here or here- page 2 after! Man, in such a plight, is worse off than a dumb brute. He may sing, as he crawls, like a snail, to his work, or moves along in the dark, like a bat, some such ghastly song as the following lines—

"Still, still pursues where'er I be,
The blight of life, the demon thought."

Man, under such circumstances, is cursed with visions and haunted with dreams, which he is destined never to see realised. "Each kindred brute might bid him blush for shame." And—as Carlyle would say—this is what we have come to in Dunedin. The works of Darwin, Huxley and Bain are the accredited text-books in our University-College. These hooks are bristling all over with grammatical inaccuracies, and gratuitous assertions of atheistic dogmas of the most insulting and revolting character.

Our new professor of "English language and Literature, constitutional history and Political economy," takes Bain's English composition, as his text-book—a work replete with bad grammar and objectionable thought. Creasy's Constitutional History—save the mark! is the text-book for that branch of knowledge. Bain and Creasy are models, in their own peculiar way. The one bristles all over with grammatical blunders, and the other narrows Constitutional History to the smallest possible circumference—so much so, indeed, that one might commit his vulgar principles to memory and be as ignorant of the compass of Constitutional History, as an infant who had just learned the alphabet, or a Darwinian man just emerged from the ape species. The origin of species, as promulgated by Darwin, and reechoed by Parker, in his inaugural lecture, and taught, nightly, to some of the storekeepers and clerks of Dunedin, gives the lie direct to the Bible, and cuts the throat of Christianity. The very Professor established by the Presbyterian Synod for the inculcation of Moral Philosophy has been all along inculcating to some half-dozen students the odious doctrine of materialism, according to Bain's text-book—mental science—or gross materialism; for, the spirit does not survive the destruction of the material organism. According to this school of Infidelity a disembodied spirit is "unthinkable."

The Inaugural lecture delivered this year at the opening of on local college, is simply "derived from Prefessor Huxley's by a natural process of descent with modification." Huxley's book on "the common sea crayfish" is our Professor's curious text-book. The coarse exposition of a bare-faced infidelity is only equalled by the wretchedly inelegant and ungrammatical language in which it is couched. Materialism not only robs man of his faith but it, also, destroys his grammar. This science—"falsely so called"—is only, to use Parker's own words—"a useful enough refuge for the stupid, the lazy, and the eccentric, but something quite beneath the notice of a man with a fair share of intellect, and diligence," and common-sense. Huxley's "General Biology"—on which our Professor, as an imitative follower, is to base his course of lectures, is the darkest and baldest phase of atheism the world has ever yet seen. When men grope in the sties of materialism, their Gospel of dirt is not likely to be impregnated with mental culture, or grammatical excellence.

"Science teaching"—"The whole end and aim of science teaching is"—"By this means"—&c.—These, and similar phrases may be quite correct, according to every science teacher, as far as university education is concerned"—but, a classical and cultured scholar rejects them as the products of a barbarous disciple of materialism. Darwin's "origin of species" conflicts with the Divine doctrine of the descent of man. It makes Revelation a huge lie, and Redemption a mockery and imposture. To use our Professor's words—"the all-embracing law of Evolution makes belief in the theory of special creation once for all impossible to the student of Nature"—as interpreted by Darwin, Huxley, and the whole tribe of antiquated materialists; for, all really page 3 intelligent philosophers and all men of common sense have abandoned the bare consideration of such a ridiculous and arbitrary hypothesis. They believe, Parker's vulgar assertion notwithstanding, "in the immutability of species." We, however, could, but will not, point out a very near resemblance to the living link connecting the irrational and the rational species. Were this doctrine of evolution true, then, indeed, man would feel "that his most cherished beliefs must be cast aside as no longer tenable."

Parker must surely have calculated on the great gullibility of his "fashionable audience," when he gratuitously, and falsely asserted "that there is now not a single naturalist of any repute, under the age of sixty, who is not also an evolutionist," and that "intelligent opposition to the general doctrine of transformation is practically dead."

Now—the real fact is that all really intelligent and devout minds have abandoned the antiquated jargon of evolution, and laugh to scorn all its insane upholders. During their convivial hours of entertainment, when the crimson bubbles are on the brink of their goblets and their brains are excited with the vapours of wine, they enliven the board with evanescent ebullitions of mirth and ribaldry, fashioned after the soul-destroying—man-degrading and God-dishonouring doctrines of evolution. So much for Professor Parker's "honored master Professor Huxley and his co-worker Dr. Michael Foster." and the whole brood of vampire bats that attempt to suck the blood of religion and culture out of the veins of the sinful sons of men.

The greatest man of Great Britain, Thomas Carlyle, who died recently, could not stomach Darwin's Book on the origin of species. It—said the sage—"is only wonderful to me as indicating the capricious stupidity of mankind. Never could read a page of it or waste the least thought upon it."

The teachers of Evolution—like our own Professors—as a correspondent in the Otago Daily Times justly says—"Instead of reverently inquiring after the unknown, make all sorts of wild statements unsupported by a single fact."

Ten years ago, when the Otago University was inaugurated, I raised my protest against the beastly materialism uttered upon that occasion under the name of Moral Philosophy. Since that day, I never ceased to warn the people against the infatuated course pursued in the management of the university, in the course of study adopted, and in the selection of professors. Long before the last two professors landed, I predicted their character and calibre. I had, single handed, to fight against the current, but, fortified by truth and a good conscience, I persevered and prevailed. The extent of the mischief done has not yet been fully apprehended. Indeed, my attitude towards the University was similar to my conduct towards the Vogelian scheme of spoliation, and, at last, in both cases, one man was found to have been exactly correct in his anticipations, and the whole colony at sea. We have spent £100,000 on our school of Materialism, and we have in return' 5 graduates, and this year only 5 matriculated students. Considering the character of the instruction imparted, we ought to rejoice at this meagre attendance. We ought, also, to be grateful that our professors have not the talents to subvert the foundations of our faith. Lest, however, I should be deemed inimicable to that Institution, let a Christian student—who sends a letter to the Daily Times, recording his experiences—speak out his mind on this question :—"What in the world are we coming to when a rev. doctor and other professed Christian ministers sit and hear a professor of evolution deny in the plainest terms the first, and, in fact, the foundation truths of the Bible? If what Mr. Parker says is true, then the rev. doctor at the head of the atheistic school has been preaching falsehood all his life. Professor Parker says that the doctrine of direct creation is perfectly unthink- page 4 able. This I hold to be an impudent falsehood, denied by the best and brightest intelligences both of the dead and living. If this man who has been swallowing Huxley and Darwin's theories, thinks he can kill our faith in the Bible he is much mistaken. It is a pity that our pampered college, with its hundreds of thousands of acres of endowments, should be under the necessity of hiring sceptical professors to destroy our faith. It is high time for Christians to awake to the fact that our College is likely to become a nursery of scientific Freethought. Even now the Bible and the name of God are banished from it, and the fact remains that we are spending thousands a year to teach a few students that the Bible is no longer necessary as a part of man's education." Who this Christian student is, I neither know, nor care to know. I should like to know if any student who had intended to enter the Church—has abandoned the idea—foolishly enough—through the teaching given from the materialistic chair supported by the Presbyterian Synod?

This student animadverts upon the anomalous position occupied by the Chancellor. We believe that he is too honest a man to occupy such a peculiar position, if he really apprehended the drift of evolution. But, we are prepared to go a step further than this student, and to assert that Evolution does not only subvert "the foundation truths of the Bible," and, consequently, of the Christian religion, but it also overturns every conceivable form of religion. Even morality is inconceivable under its pernicious auspices. Of Materialism Carlyle says, that the frying-pan—not the censer—is the symbol of its devotion. And viewed in this light, we need not wonder at the mercenary motives that animate the actions, as well as the doctrines, of the Dramatis personæ of the Dunedin den of dark materialism. Christ's canon is applicable to them, as well as to others—"By their fruits ye shall know them."

We never expected any good at their hands, and so we are not disappointed. We always admired Dr. Arnold's attitude of defiance towards the London University. The Head master of Rugby would have nothing to do with an Institution that ignored, albeit it did not sneer at religion. His contention was sound and unassailable—to wit, "Education without Christianity is incomplete."

The Christian Record denounces Parker's Evolution thus :—"The doctrine which he puts forth, besides being utterly unproved, is directly antagonistic to true morality, and runs counter to the religion of the Bible. Proof of this statement is scarcely necessary. If man is merely the product of development from a lower type of animal, and that from a still lower, and finally from "primordial slime," he can have no free-will, no responsibility, and no morality. The Bible must be a mere fable, unworthy of belief on the part of the student of nature, or of any intelligent man.

Although we are not disappointed at the absolute failure of our university, yet we are, in common with a writer in the Morning Herald, amazed at "the wretched gorilla damnification of humanity," exhibited in the inaugural address. Professor Parker's "oracular utterances on the special creation theory are the outcome seemingly of his profound study of the crayfish; and it must be consoling to think that the vacuity left in the minds of the students by the recession of the theologic tide will be amply compensated for by the study of the anatomical structure of the common barn-door fowl. Fancy, the sublimation of student intellect reached by examining the entrails of cocks and hens!"

Verily, we are progressing in our education. In Pagan Rome, there was a College of Augurs for the inspection of the entrails of the sacred chickens and other dumb animals, with a view to learn the mind of the gods regarding sublunary affairs. But this was done, at Rome, in the interests of religion, and not, as in Dunedin, to subvert the very foundations of all religion.