Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - Darwin and the Theory of Evolution.djvu/45

 42 Darwin began, as did most of us, by accepting literally the English Bible, placing a child's faith in an all-powerful and all-seeing God, who could create worlds or help small boys get to school on time, just as the occasion demanded. By the time he left Edinburgh he had progressed far enough to question some things in the creed of the Church of England, and this caused some hesitation when his father urged him to go to Cambridge and become a preacher. But even then he did not question a word of the Bible, so that when he found an admirably written book, which showed, quite skillfully, that the dogmas of the church also were the "everlasting truths" of Christianity, his doubts were settled. That placid orthodoxy lasted almost throughout the Beagle voyage; the young man even got himself laughed at by the ship's officers for quoting the Bible as infallible evidence in argument.

But the large number of things seen on the world-trip could not fail to undermine orthodox faith, and particularly the orthodox faith of a young man fond of thinking things out for himself. Less than three years after his return to England he had come to the conclusion that the Old Testament was no more reliable than the sacred books of the Hindus. That admission brought another flood of doubts, this time about the New Testament. If there was a god, interested in the good of the Hindus, would he make a new revelation and permit it to be linked up with the old Hindu gods and heroes, as the revelation of Jesus is connected with the Old Testament and its obvious falsehoods. Would the bearer of this new revelation