Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/167

Rh a denial of God"; and that "no teleologist can be a Darwinian." Even more bitter was another of the leading authorities at the same university—the Rev. Dr. Duffield. He declared war not only against Darwin but even against men like Asa Gray, Le Conte, and others, who had attempted to reconcile the new theory with the Bible; he insisted that "evolutionism and the scriptural account of the origin of man are irreconcilable"—that the Darwinian theory is "in direct conflict with the teaching of the apostle, 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God'"; he points out, in opposition both to Darwin's Descent of Man and Lyell's Antiquity of Man, that in the Bible "the genealogical links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with Adam and Eve in Eden are explicitly given." These utterances of Prof. Duffield culminated in a declaration which deserves to be cited as showing that a Presbyterian minister can "deal damnation round the land" ex cathedra in a fashion quite equal to that of popes and bishops. It is as follows: "If the development theory of the origin of man," wrote Dr. Duffield in the Princeton Review, "shall in a little while take its place—as doubtless it will—with other exploded scientific speculations, then they who accept it with its proper logical consequences will in the life to come have their portion with those who in this life 'know not God and obey not the gospel of his Son.'"

Fortunately, at about the time when Darwin's Descent of Man was published, there had come into Princeton University a "deus ex machina" in the person of Dr. James McCosh. Assuming the presidency, he at once took his stand against teachings so dangerous to Christianity as those of Drs. Hodge, Duffield, and their confrères. In one of his personal confidences he has let us into the secret of this matter. With that hard Scotch sense which had won the applause of Thackeray in his well-known verses, he saw that the most dangerous thing which could be done to Christianity at Princeton was to reiterate in the university pulpit, week after week, solemn declarations that if evolution by natural selection, or indeed evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures are false. McCosh tells us that he saw that this was the certain way to make the students unbelievers; he therefore not only gave a check to this dangerous preaching but preached an opposite doctrine. With him began the inevitable compromise, and, in spite of mutterings against him as a Darwinian, he carried the day. Whatever may be thought of the general system of philosophy which he has advocated, no one can deny the great service he rendered in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and colleagues—so dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity.

Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the country began to take similar ground—namely, that men could be Christians