III.

THE GOD OF EVOLUTION.

THE manifestation of the life and power of the universe has been a gradual evolution; that is, a continuous unfolding, a growing revelation, the less becoming more, the simple becoming complex, through an apparently infinite development and specialization. The whole is recapitulated in every flower that blooms. The rose is first a seed; it pushes up through the soil, then branches, sends out bud and leaf, bursts into beauty and fragrance of flower, and then develops from its loveliness the germ of something more to come. So of the mountain-pine, that has stood on its watch-tower overlooking whole centuries of human history. Its potential life was once wrapped up in one little seed, sheltered in the protecting grasp of a tiny cone that one might hold in his hand. The might and the marvel of this life are not to be seen by simply looking at seed or cone, but by studying the processe and results of the wondrous unfolding, or evolution.

The universe, so far as at present we are able to trace, was once contained in the world-seed of the fire-mist, or

primitive nebula. We might guess all sorts of things, as to where the fire-mist came from, and how it came: but science means knowledge; and it is my purpose, so far as possible, to keep myself strictly to what is known. Theology assumes God, and thinks thus to escape all difficulties. But should science take to assuming, it has the same right to declare that the fire-mist made itself, or that it always existed, as theology has to say that God made himself, or always existed. I am willing frankly to admit that it is just as easy to think that the universe always existed, or that it made itself, as it is to think that God always existed, or made himself. It is simply impossible to imagine or comprehend either the one or the other. As, then, I wish to speak to and command a respectful hearing from those who are not content to rest in tradition or assumption, but who wish to find out if religion has any basis of knowledge to stand on, I propose to avoid assuming any thing, even the existence of God. I wish to find him, if I can; and then there will be no need of assumption.

We begin, then, with the fire-mist, because that is the first thing we know. This fire-mist, by cooling and condensing, became suns and planets and worlds, the wondrous heavens of our present telescopic astronomy. Our system was slowly born. The sun, so large that it has not yet cooled, is the source of our life and light and heat. The moon, so small that it is already cold and dead, exists now only for the sake of the earth. Other members of the system are still half-sun and half-planet, not

yet ready for the abode of life. When it was ready, the lowest forms of life, having nothing of limbs, or bone, or brain, -no organization, appeared in the primeval oceans of the world. Then there were long ages, during which the highest type of life on the earth were fishes. The finny vikings were the lords and the nobility of the time. Then these climbed up into the higher form of reptiles. Huge creatures, half living in the seas, half on the land, or with great dragon-wings flying heavily through the air, now reigned over the earth for thousands of years. Then came the birds; and for centuries they were the highest form of life upon the globe. Next animal shapes appeared, climbing up from the lowest types and simplest forms, until the great tree of life flowered. out into humanity. But the first being that could be properly called human was, as compared with later developments, no more than the insignificant blossom of a wayside weed when placed beside the perfumed glory of the rose, or the gorgeous tropical outflowering of the century-plant. The gulf that separates the highest animals from the lowest men is as nothing compared with the wider differences that divide between those lowest men and the Dantes, the Shaksperes, and the Newtons of the race. And above these the moral grandeur of one like Jesus towers like a mountain, that, above all its range, looks down on its fellows from the clouds.

The

Thus the panorama of creation has unfolded. first scene was the fire-mist: the last that we have looked on is the present hour, including the highest social, politi

cal, and religious life and aspirations of the race. And the end is not yet: the creation is not still: the scene is moving and unfolding to-day. And if we may guess the future from the past, the imagination must confess that it has no colors bright and grand enough to paint the possibilities of the ages to come.

You can now see that the manifestation of the life and force of the universe has been a gradual evolution. And if, at any particular stage of the progress, there had been some person present trying to find out what the life was by looking at "the things made," of course he would have had to make his idea of this life, or God (if he gave it that name), out of the then condition of things. His god would have been on the level of the fire-mist or the fishes, like the Philistines' Dagon; or of the reptiles, like the deities of the serpent-worshippers; or of the animals, like the sacred bull of Egypt; or simply a physical man, like the Roman Hercules or Jupiter, or the early Hebrew Jehovah (for Jehovah at first was only a gigantic man): as David says, "Jehovah is a man of war." As such he appears all through Genesis.

This manifestation of the life of things has thus been a gradual and growing one. And it is curious and instructive to notice that the idea of God in the human mind has recapitulated, or lived over again, this evolution of the facts of the world. Have you ever thought over the first conceptions that men had of God, and how they have developed to what we think and believe to-day? The first men of the world, of course, had no fire, no

houses, and no weapons with which to defend their lives, or to hunt for food. The most important invention of the world was discovered when some man first made a spear out of a stick. Defenceless as they were in the midst of hunger and cold and storm and wild beasts, the predominant motive and feeling of the time must have been fear; and from this would naturally develop their first religion. As they saw each other and the wild animals moving about, and crying, and making noises, and saw that they were alive, they, like the child-men they were, thought that every thing that moved, or made a noise, was also alive. And as the wild beasts hurt and killed them, when they got a chance, and as the storms and cold hurt and killed them, their most pressing thought was one of safety. They saw the trees move when the wind blew; they felt the motion and power of the wind that they could not see; they saw the waters run; they saw the lightning flash, and twist itself like a huge serpent in the clouds; they saw the clouds go across the sky, and the sun and moon rise and set; and as they saw all these things moving in this way, they thought they were living beings, who might hurt them if they were angry, or might help them, if they chose. Thus they turned all these things into gods. Then they began to pray to them, and to give, or offer, them things they thought they would like, and to try to find out how they might influence them to do what they desired. This was the original polytheism, or, in its lowest manifestation, fetichism.

But after a good many ages, some of the races of men