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The Christian Foundation Or Scientific And Religious Journal V 1 by Various

SPECIES, OR UNITS OF NATURE.

Are millions of years adequate as a cause, when associated with all the forces known in nature, to produce new species and extirpate old ones? The teachings of Darwin require an answer in the affirmative.

The survival of the fittest is one of Darwin's emphasized laws of natural selection. He says: |In all cases the new and improved forms of life tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms. New varieties continually take the place of and supplant the parent form. New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older.| -- Origin of Species, pp.264, 266, 413.

Do the facts sustain this assumption? The little animals whose remains compose the great chalk-beds are alive and working. Inarticulate or molluscan life is seen in a sub-fossil condition in the Post Pliocene clays of Canada. They are just as they were in the beginning of their history. Species seem to be immutably fixed. The demand for millions of years, in order to get old species out and new ones in, breaks down with the mollusk of the Pliocene in the clays of Canada. The Pliocene species are the more recent; such is, in fact, the meaning of the term in geology. The mollusk of Canada Pliocene clay has undergone no change since its first appearance upon our globe.

In order to account for ancient life, that passed away, as far back as the carboniferous age, it is claimed that millions of years passed before that age began. But here are the very first species of mollusca in the more recent clays unchanged, and here are the same little animals that floored so much territory in the bygone with chalk. How does this look by the side of the last quotation from Darwin?

Crabs or lobsters, cuttle-fish, jelly-fish, star-fish, oysters, snails, and worms lived contemporary with the first vertebrates. I have recently read an article in which it is said by an advocate of the Darwinian hypothesis, that man in his original condition was a cannibal, feasting, ordinarily, upon snails and worms. Now, it is claimed that millions of years have passed, and that millions of years inevitably destroy old species and introduce new ones; and yet here are the same old pesky snails and worms. If millions of years have passed the system is false. And if millions of years have not passed the system is false; so it is certainly false.

Hybrids are wonderfully in the way of the hypothesis. They can not be saved. All artificial varieties return to their simple form. Mr. Huxley recognizes this as an objection that can not be surmounted. He says, |While it remains Darwin's doctrine, must be content to remain a mere hypothesis;| that is, a mere guess.

In the latest productions of Agassiz we have this statement: |As a palaeontologist I have from the beginning stood aloof from this new theory of transmutation, now so widely admitted; its doctrines, in fact, contradict what the animal forms buried in the rocky strata of our earth tell us of their own introduction and succession upon the surface of the globe.|

The first vertebrates are sharks, ganoids and garpikes, which are the highest in structure of all known fishes. Darwin's hypothesis demands this order reversed.

When you ask an evolutionist for the links connecting new and old species, as he is pleased to denominate them, you receive the satisfactory (?) answer, |They are lost.| A painter presented a man with a red canvass, claiming that it represented the children of Israel crossing the Red sea. The question was asked, |Where are the Israelites?| The painter answered, |They have crossed over.| |But,| said the man, |where are the Egyptians?| |O, my dear sir,| said the artist, |they are under the sea.| This is a very fine illustration of facts, if Darwinism may boast of facts, for the connecting links between species are |under the sea| of oblivion, never to be found, and the old species |have passed over.| Mr. Darwin's apology is in these words: |Every one will admit that the geological record is imperfect; but very few can believe that it is so very imperfect as my theory demands.| This is a grand concession. The |wild speculation| has no support from geology. The blanket of oblivion, which Mr. Darwin and his friends spread over the difficulty, is |millions of years.| In that length of time the missing species, or links, would, of course, all pass out of sight. Is this true? No. In the geological record millions of specimens are fossilized and laid away in nature's great cabinet. Why not find a few of the missing links there? Just one. |One fact, gentlemen, if you please.| Science is certain knowledge. Is there certain knowledge of missing links? Gentlemen, just bridge one gulf for us; the gulf lying between any two species will do. We get impatient, standing and gazing. Look! Can you see across?

Mr. Darwin says, |Professor Haeckel, in his general Morphology and other works, has brought his great knowledge and abilities to bear on what he calls phylogeny or the lines of descent of all organic beings.| -- Origin of Species, p.381.

This author, Mr. Haeckel, has |lines of descent| which involves the idea of a plurality of beginnings in the history of organic being; that is, Mr. Haeckel claims a vertebrate series with a vertebrate lying at the base of the series, and an articulate series with an articulate lying at its base. So there must be A SPECIAL CREATION AT LAST. Hear him: |There appears, indeed, to be a limit given to the adaptability of every organism by the type of its tribe or phylum. Thus, for example, no vertebrate animal can acquire the ventral nerve chord of articulate animals instead of the characteristic spinal marrow of the vertebrate animals.| -- History of Creation, vol.1, p.250. So the vertebrate must forever remain a vertebrate, and the articulate forever an articulate. Were they both evolved from the same unit? We are anxious to know, how from a pulpy mass of flesh, from a moneron, a creature of one substance, vertebrates were evolved. We would like to know, also, how a creature of more than one substance could be evolved from a creature of one substance without more being gotten out of the thing than there was in it. Here spontaneous generation passes into a wreck. Do you see? The pulpy mass of flesh, or moneron, from which so much has been |evolved| was the result of |the sun's rays falling upon the sea slime,| and was and is a creature of one substance, homogeneous. |Natural selection| could not operate in the vertebrate type before it existed. It was |limited to the type or phylum.| That is to say, natural selection could evolve new species without limitation from each type, but could never evolve a vertebrate from an articulate, nor an articulate from a vertebrate. Then, how are the two series from the same unit; or, if they are connected with two different units, how are those units the effect of the same unintelligent cause? How are we going to cross this chasm lying between the sun's rays and the sea slime upon the one hand, and the articulate and the vertebrate upon the other? Darwin says, |Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity.| Well, how is it with the past? We are told that millions of years are the demand for the changes already brought about. Millions of years would certainly be enough to constitute a |distant futurity.| How is it now? Is there not one species having its likeness represented by a species in the distant past? Yes; the genus lingula, the species appearing in all the ages, was |connected by an unbroken series of generations from the lowest Silurian stratum to the present day.| -- Origin of Species, pp.293, 294, 428.

Darwin's |theory| claims that the first forms of all life still exist, and are known and named. The ape, if it could talk like a man, would boast of a history reaching all the way back to time prior to the existence of the greater number of the mammals. To get rid of the difficulty of first forms still existing, Mr. Darwin cuts off his unit from the law of |the survival of the fittest,| or |the inevitable destruction of the parent form.| He says: |A very simple form, fitted for very simple conditions of life, might remain for indefinite ages unaltered, or unimproved; for what would it profit an infusorial animalcule, or an intestinal worm, to become highly organized?| -- Animals and Plants, vol.1, p.19. |Under very simple conditions of life a higher organism would be of no service.| -- Origin of Species, p.100.

How are we to reconcile the conflicting ideas in this speculation? At one time we are taught that all forms of life were, originally, very simple forms, existing under very simple conditions. At another time we are taught that |new and improved forms inevitably supplant and destroy parent forms.| At another we are taught, at great length, the doctrine of the survival of the fittest.

At another we are taught that all things have worked, and do work, without designs upon the part of a present intelligence.

At another we are taught that very simple forms of life, under the very simple conditions of life, have continued to the present day, because of the fact that it would be of NO SERVICE for them to become highly organized. No service to whom? To what end?

Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee. What! Is there an end in view that has governed in the great question of evolution of species, and the survival of the fittest? Darwin seems to think so. The wonderful |machine| that Strauss talked about in connection with the |smashing| and |crashing| that destroys parent forms did not smash the simplest forms of life. Why? The answer is, |It would be of no service for them to become highly organized.| Then all the smashing and crashing known in the doctrine of |the survival of the fittest| and in |the destruction of the parent form| was under the supervision of some controlling power, having an end to accomplish.

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If we see a member of the church of Christ living in obedience to the |law of Christ,| we say he is a Christian, and speak of him as such; on the other hand, if we know he is in works denying Christ, being disobedient, we tacitly assume that he is not a Christian, yet a mawkish charity keeps us, in too many instances, from speaking out in this matter, and also keeps us from earnestly trying to distinguish the true Christian; and this is one of the great sins of the church in our times, for thus the wicked are not put to shame, and others are caused to hesitate in their graces by the conduct of those whom, in mawk charity, are called Christians.

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|Mouth-glue is made of pure glue, as parchment glue, or gelatine and coarse brown sugar. Take pure glue and add one-quarter or one-third of its weight of brown sugar. Put both into a sufficient quantity of water to boil and reduce the mass to a liquid, then cast into thin cakes on a flat surface very slightly oiled, and, as it cools, cut up into pieces of a convenient size. When you wish to use it moisten one end in the mouth, and rub it on any substance you wish to join; a piece kept in the work-box is very convenient.| -- Chambers.

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The Christian's faith was not intended to sit him down in ease, but to stimulate him to the discharge of his duties. So the work of faith is a noble work, a life of labor.

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