Page:The World's Most Famous Court Trial - 1925.djvu/182

178 in, but do not know that everybody knows as a fact, and nobody can tell how it came, and they do not explain the great riddle of the universe—they do not deal with the problems of life—they do not teach the great science of how to live—and yet they would undermine the faith of these little children in that God who stands back of everything and whose promise we have that we shall live with Him forever bye and bye. They shut God out of the world. They do not talk about God. Darwin says the beginning of all things is a mystery unsolvable by us. He does not pretend to say how these things started.

The Court—Well, if the theory is, Col. Bryan, that God did not create the cell, then it could not be reconcilable with the Bible.

Mr. Bryan—Of course, it could not be reconcilable with the Bible.

The Court—Before it could he reconcilable with the Bible it would have to be admitted that God created the cell.

Mr. Bryan—There would be no contention about that, but our contention is, even if they put God back there, it does not make it harmonious with the Bible. The court is right that unless they put God back there, it must dispute the Bible, and this witness who has been questioned, whether he has qualified or not, and they could ask him every question they wanted to, but they did not ask him how life began, they did not ask whether back of it all, whether if in the beginning there was God. They did not tell us where immortality began. They did not tell us where in this long period of time, between the cell at the bottom of the sea and man, where man became endowed with the hope of immortality. They did not, if you please, and most of them do not go to the place to hunt for it, because more than half of the scientists of this country—Prof. James H. Labell, one of them, and he bases it on thousands of letters they sent to him, says more than half do not believe there is a God or personal immortality, and they want to teach that to these children, and take that from them, to take from them their belief in a God who stands ready to welcome his children.

And your honor asked me whether it has anything to do with the principle of the virgin birth. Yes, because this principle of evolution disputes the miracle; there is no place for the miracle in this train of evolution, and the Old Testament and the New are filled with miracles, and if this doctrine is true, this logic eliminates every mystery in the Old Testament and the New, and eliminates everything supernatural, and that means they eliminate the virgin birth—that means that they eliminate the resurrection of the body— that means that they eliminate the doctrine of atonement and they believe man has been rising all the time, that man never fell, that when the Savior came there was not any reason for His coming, there was no reason why He should not go as soon as He could, that He was born of Joseph or some other co-respondent, and that He lies in his grave, and when the Christians of this state have tied their hands and said we will not take advantage of our power to teach religion to our children: by teachers paid by us, these people come in from the outside of the state and force upon the people of this state and upon the children of the taxpayers of this state a doctrine that refutes not only their belief in God, but their belief in a Savior and belief in heaven, and takes from them every moral standard that the Bible gives us. It is this doctrine that gives us Nietzsche, the only great author who tried to carry this to its logical conclusion, and we have the testimony of my distinguished friend from Chicago in his speech in the Loeb and Leopold case that 50,000 volumes had been written about Nietzsche, and he is the greatest philosopher in the last hundred years and have him pleading that because Leopold read Nietzsche and