THE WOBLD 
 AND ITS GOD 
 
 PHILIP MAURO 
 
PH/,v"^> 
 
 ,^ 
 
 BL 263 .M45 1917 
 
 Mauro, Philip, 1859-1952 
 
 The world and its god 
 
THE WORLD AND 
 ITS GOD 
 
 BY 
 PHILIP ''MAURO 
 
 COUNSELLOR-AT-LAW 
 
 "The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed 
 and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the 
 Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" (Jer. 8:9.) 
 
 HAMILTON BROS. 
 SCRIPTURE TRUTH DEPOT 
 
 120 Tremont Street 
 Boston. Mass. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface to First Edition ...... 5 
 
 Preface to Revised and Enlarged Edition 8 
 
 Preface to New Edition 12 
 
 I. The Passing of Materialism . . 13 
 
 II. The Claim of the Bible ... 17 
 
 III. Transformation of Life ... 22 
 
 IV. The World-system : Its Origin . . 25 
 V. The Seeds of Doubt 31 
 
 VI. The Gospel of Self 35 
 
 VII. As an Angel of Light .... 39 
 
 VIII. The Failure of the Scheme . . 45 
 
 IX. The Bible Solution 51 
 
 X. "Fig Leaves" 61 
 
 XL "Where Art Thou?" (^7 
 
 XII. The Deceiver of the World . . 73 
 
 XIII. The Conditions of Faith ... 80 
 
 XIV. Divine Agencies in the World . 83 
 XV. The Way of Deliverance ... 87 
 
 XVI. The Truth about "Evolution" . 92 
 
 XVII. Two Methods of World-making . 96 
 XVIII. No Evolution Outside Human 
 
 Affairs . . c 100 
 
4 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XIX. Evolution Universal in Human 
 
 Affairs 104 
 
 XX. No Evolution among the Lower 
 
 Animals 107 
 
 XXI. Effects of Evolution . . . .109 
 XXII. The Error of the Evolutionist . 113 
 
 XXIII. Degeneration 115 
 
 XXIV. Conclusion ....... 119 
 
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION (1905) 
 
 The purpose of this volume is to make an appli- 
 cation of the philosophic or rationalistic test to the 
 Bible account of Creation, and particularly to that 
 portion of the account which deals with the Origin 
 of Evil in human nature. 
 
 There is room just now for an application of 
 this test, because of the collapse of the Darwinian 
 theory of the Origin of Species. That theory, 
 which was the central doctrine of the philosophy 
 of Materialism, had so completely occupied the 
 stage, that its exit leaves a most conspicuous 
 vacancy. If Evil (in its infinite variety of mani- 
 festations) be not a primal condition out of which 
 man is evolving, and which the human race is 
 gradually leaving behind, as Materialism taught, 
 what is it? If we reject Materialism, as the suc- 
 cessors of its now deceased apostles are doing, 
 what shall take its place ? 
 
 Here are patent facts — the most conspicuous 
 matters of daily observation — viz., the distressing 
 facts of human delinquencies and sufferings. It 
 is not endurable that we should have no explana- 
 tion of them; and Materialism, while it lasted, 
 sufficed at least to prevent a painful void. In 
 
6 Preface 
 
 what direction then shall we turn to find a resting- 
 place for our inquiring minds? In such a period 
 of transition there will be some minds (and possibly 
 not a few) who will be disposed to examine again 
 (or perhaps for the first time) the explanation 
 given by the Author of Genesis, and to ascertain 
 whether that explanation accounts for the other- 
 wise inexplicable facts of human experience and 
 history. To these the following lines will afford 
 an opportunity of making such examination, and 
 will furnish assistance in conducting it to a sound 
 conclusion. 
 
 Readers who are accustomed to philosophic 
 discussions will find themselves in a familiar path 
 so far as relates to the method employed herein; 
 at the same time there is no attempt at profundity, 
 and no arguments or reasonings are presented 
 which the simple-minded and unphilosophic reader 
 cannot readily grasp. 
 
 The volume is written from the present stand- 
 point of one w^ho, after having been for upward 
 of twenty years an Implicit believer in the main 
 doctrines of Materialism, has come to the un- 
 qualified acceptance of the first three chapters 
 (and of all the other chapters) of Genesis, as a 
 literal and accurate description of historic events. 
 
 The author has spoken of the passing of 
 Materialism, and particularly of the collapse of 
 the Darwinian theory, as the striking present-day 
 movement of philosophic thought. It is, indeed,. 
 
Preface 7 
 
 common to hear those who fancy themselves to be 
 talking learnedly speak of these things as if they 
 were still — as they were a decade ago — the almost 
 unquestioned teachings of "Science." But these 
 (many of them, sad to say, now occupants of 
 pulpits in Christian churches) are but merely 
 echoing in this generation the always unproved 
 and now properly rejected speculations of a dead 
 and gone generation of infidel philosophers. 
 
PREFACE TO REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 EDITION (1906) 
 
 In the light of criticisms and suggestions which 
 have reached the author from various sources it 
 has seemed desirable to revise and amplify this 
 work. 
 
 It has been asked by several if the writer has 
 not taken too much for granted in saying or im- 
 plying that the evolutionary theories of the past 
 generation have been generally discarded by the 
 "Science" of today. There is evident need of a 
 further word on this point in order to give a clear 
 statement of just what the writer believes to be 
 the truth in this connection. 
 
 A distinction is to be made between the theory 
 of Evolution or Development, broadly (which is 
 much older than Mr. Spencer's philosophy), and the 
 Materialism of the generation which has just passed 
 away. The writer has spoken of the "passing of 
 materialism/' and, in particular, has called atten- 
 tion to the discredit which is more and more 
 attaching to that utterly baseless conception known 
 as the Darwinian theory of the Origin of Species. 
 In the first edition of this book the writer said : 
 
 "We are concerned, therefore, not so much 
 
Preface 9 
 
 with Evolution in its comprehensive sense, as with 
 the specific theory of the origin of Uving 
 creatures, inckiding man, by a process of 'nat- 
 ural selection' in the 'struggle for existence/ " 
 
 It was to the collapse of this part of the whole 
 system, known popularly as "Evolution," that 
 attention was specially directed. A few changes 
 of phraseology have made this distinction clearer 
 in the present edition. 
 
 Those who wish to examine further evidence 
 indicative of this movement of philosophic thought 
 away from Darwinism and Materialism, are re- 
 ferred to a work, recently published in Germany, by 
 Professor E. Dennert, Ph.D., entitled At the 
 Death-bed of Darwinism, whereof an authorized 
 English translation has been published by the 
 German Literary Board, Burlington, Iowa. 
 
 The following quotation from the preface of the 
 translation will indicate the nature and scope of 
 the work: 
 
 "In the series of chapters herewith offered 
 for the first time to English readers. Dr. Dennert 
 has brought together testimonies which leave 
 no room for doubt about the decadence of the 
 Darwinian theory in the highest scientific circles 
 in Germany. And outside of Germany the same 
 sentiment is shared generally by the leaders of 
 scientific thought." 
 
lo Preface 
 
 In chapter ii. of Dr. Dennert's book the testi- 
 mony of the Strasburg zoologist, Dr. Goette, is 
 given, being quoted from his Present Status of 
 Darwinism. Dr. Goette refers to the reluctance 
 of some naturalists to discard the theory of selec- 
 tion, and says they are disposed to cling to it 
 "simply because it seems to furnish a much desired 
 mechanical explanation of purposive adaptations." 
 This reluctance to discard Darwinism, with nothing 
 but the hated alternative of accepting the Bible 
 account of creation, is quite natural. 
 
 Reference may also be had to Professor L. T. 
 Townsend's Collapse of Evolution (National Maga- 
 zine Co., Boston, Mass.), in which the term 
 "Evolution" is used as signifying mainly the Dar- 
 winian theory. 
 
 But with reference to "Evolution," strictly so- 
 called, the writer not only does not maintain that 
 that theory has been generally discarded in toto, 
 but, on the contrary, firmly believes that there is a 
 sphere whereof it may truly be said that all things 
 contained therein have, from its very beginning, 
 been subject to, and are still undergoing, never- 
 ceasing changes, and that these changes take place 
 in substantial accordance with the so-called "law 
 of Evolution" as formulated by Herbert Spencer. 
 It was from this sphere that Mr. Spencer drew 
 those clear and convincing illustrations of the 
 aforesaid "law" which lent support to his theory, 
 and gained for it such wide acceptance. 
 
Preface II 
 
 The sphere wherein everything, without excep- 
 tion, is uninterruptedly undergoing those evolu- 
 tionary changes (which Herbert Spencer noted, 
 and which he called "Evolution"), is the sphere 
 of human affairs and activities. Upon surveying 
 this sphere, another observer (not so well known in 
 scientific circles as Herbert Spencer) has summed 
 up the prevailing conditions in the comprehensive 
 and familiar line — 
 
 "Change and decay in all around I see." 
 
 But the important fact which Mr. Spencer and 
 his disciples failed to note is that the operation of 
 the law of Evolution is rigidly limited to the circle 
 of the activities of the descendants of Adam. 
 Within that circle everything, without exception, 
 is subject to evolutionary changes. Outside of it 
 there is not a trace of such changes. In a word, 
 the area of the operation of the law of Evolution 
 coincides absolutely with the area of the conse- 
 quences of man's departure from the will of God, 
 as described in Genesis 3. Evolution is the law of 
 the career of fallen man. Along the entire path- 
 way of that career, alike in all whereof man boasts 
 and in all whereof he is ashamed, the marks of this 
 law are manifest. Outside of that pathway not a 
 glimpse of it can be seen. This is a fact of 
 tremendous significance, and in order to show its 
 importance the writer has added Chapters XVI - 
 
12 Preface 
 
 XXIV, inclusive, which did not appear in previous 
 editions. 
 
 PHILIP MAURO. 
 New York City. 
 
 PREFACE TO NEW EDITION (1917) 
 
 As we revise this Httle work, after a lapse of 
 twelve years from the publication of the first edition, 
 we are impressed with the fact that the march of 
 events has brought into view new and striking illus- 
 trations of the truth we have sought to set forth. 
 At this moment the great World War is raging in 
 its third year of havoc and bloodshed. How mar- 
 vellously does the Scripture shed light upon this 
 hideous calamity by declaring that the prince and 
 god of this world, the Devil, has ''the power of 
 death" (Heb. 2:14) ! And now the greatest catas- 
 trophe of all time is upon the world; the greatest 
 climax in the history of mankind is at hand. What 
 next? The wisdom of this world can give no 
 answer. But how consoling to the believing heart 
 is the clear and sure word of prophecy, telling us 
 that the earth, now convulsed by the Devil's war, 
 will soon come into the blessings of God's peace, and 
 under the government of the Prince of Peace ! For 
 "the government shall be upon his shoulder," and 
 "of the increase of his government and peace there 
 shall be no end." 
 
 March 29, 191 7. 
 
THE WORLD AND 
 ITS GOD 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PASSING OF MATERIALISM. 
 
 THROUGH all generations philosophy has 
 concerned itself with the questions: How- 
 did man come to be what he is? and, 
 How did social conditions come to be what they 
 are ? These are not really two questions, but one ; 
 since the condition of "the world" finds its 
 immediate explanation in human nature. 
 
 For thousands of years men have been observing 
 minutely social conditions as they exist from time 
 to time, and the changes from one set of conditions 
 to another. A great mass of facts has been col- 
 lected and many ''laws of nature" have been ascer- 
 tained or inferred; and upon all this fund of in- 
 formation philosophical minds have pondered, seek- 
 ing the explanation of man and his world. 
 
 The latest and most ambitious attempt at the 
 unification of human knowledge is that made by 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer. In the Spencerian view of 
 the universe all changes and developments are, 
 and always have been, controlled by a principle 
 or law of "Evolution." According to this supposed 
 
14 The World and Xts Ood 
 
 law all developments proceed from the relatively 
 simple and homogeneous to the relatively complex 
 and heterogeneous. Entrusting ourselves to the 
 guidance of this theory we are led backward in 
 time to a condition of extreme simplicity, to a 
 period wherein "eternal and indestructible Matter" 
 subsisted in a perfectly simple and undifferentiated 
 condition, and wherein "eternal and indestruc- 
 tible Force" had no manifestation, and no property 
 but the impulse to evolve. 
 
 This philosophy gives no account of the origin 
 of Matter and Force, nor does it assume to suggest 
 how the principle of Evolution came into operation. 
 It does not attempt to explain how or by what 
 means the primal impulse to evolve was imparted 
 to matter in its (supposed) primal condition of 
 absolute simplicity and homogeneity. On the 
 contrary, the Spencerian philosophy places the 
 origin of matter, energy, and the primal evolution- 
 ary Impulse in the region of the "unknowable." 
 It admits the existence of a "First Cause," because 
 the latter is necessary in order to complete the 
 explanation. This "First Cause" is needed for 
 the purpose of starting the universe, and of Im- 
 pressing upon it the primal evolutionary impulse; 
 but thereafter it is dismissed, being functus officio, 
 and no longer required for the explanation of 
 phenomena. Lest there should be, on the part 
 of students of this modern philosophy, any dis- 
 position to inquire further regarding the "First 
 
The Passing of Materialism 15 
 
 Cause," that too is placed in the category of the 
 "unknowable." 
 
 Spencerian philosophy thus sets itself forth as a 
 finality. Except as to details, it speaks the last 
 words of man's wisdom, since it explains how 
 everything, animate and inanimate, came to be 
 what it is, namely, in consequence of gradual 
 changes and of new and ever more complex — ^but 
 purely spontaneous and fortuitous — ^groupings pf 
 the original atoms; and what it does not purport 
 to explain it puts into the impenetrable region of 
 the "unknowable." 
 
 It has been very properly objected that this phi- 
 losophy is exceedingly unphilosophical in assert- 
 ing that God (a name which many prefer to "First 
 Cause") has no power to make Himself known to 
 man, and that hence the use of the term "unknow- 
 able" is wholly unwarranted. The use of this word 
 is simply a presumptuous attempt to erect a barrier 
 against all inquiry into what it most concerns man 
 to know ; and from this circumstance alone the truly 
 wise may clearly perceive the origin and purpose of 
 Spencerian philosophy. When once pointed out, it is 
 obvious to the most unphilosophical mind that God 
 would not be God if He had not the power to reveal 
 to man so much of Himself, and of His purposes in 
 creation, as the mind of man is capable of compre- 
 hending. 
 
 We can agree with the conclusions of Herbert 
 Spencer and his school to this extent, that man 
 
l6 The World and Its God 
 
 cannot know anything of his own origin, of human 
 nature with its strange contradictions, and of the 
 existing world-system or organization, unless it be 
 directly revealed hy the Creator. 
 
 Upon this ground "thinkers" of all schools can 
 stand; and their first division must be upon the 
 question v/hether or not God has communicated 
 with man and given to him a revelation: that is, 
 upon the question — Is the Bible the Word of God, 
 or is it simply a human production? 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CLAIM OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 IT has seemed to the writer, after pondering sym- 
 pathetically the Spencerian explanation of the 
 universe, and after being constrained to recog- 
 nize its inadequacy, that the Rationalistic method 
 of testing a theory might be applied with help- 
 ful results to the Biblical explanation of phe- 
 nomena. Within recent times the Biblical explana- 
 tion of the creation of the universe, particularly of 
 the earth and its inhabitants, as given in the first 
 three chapters of Genesis, was rejected by nearly all 
 men who made the slightest pretense to learning, 
 upon the ground that it was in conflict with the 
 supposed facts of natural science. 
 
 We do not propose to speak here of the profound 
 change more recently wrought in the attitude of 
 science, in consequence of the latest discoveries of 
 geology and palaeontology. It can now be asserted 
 upon the authority of the most eminent men of 
 science, that not a single demonstrated fact of 
 science stands in contradiction to the Creation story 
 of Genesis. But the question which more nearly 
 concerns us, and which we propose here to consider, 
 is the great question which the philosophy grounded 
 upon Materialism failed utterly to answer, namely : 
 "How did man and the world come to be what they 
 
iB The World and Its God 
 
 are?" We are concerned, therefore, not so much 
 with Evolution in its comprehensive sense, as with 
 the specific theory of the origin of the species of 
 living creatures, including man, by a process of 
 "natural selection" in the "struggle for existence." 
 
 The time is opportune for such a discussion, 
 because one of the events which is transpiring in 
 our day is the collapse of the Darwinian theory 
 of the Origin of Species. Let us dwell for a 
 moment upon this most impressive fact, and learn 
 from it at least the utter instability of any system 
 of philosophy which has its basis in human wisdom. 
 
 Never in the entire history of philosophy was 
 a doctrine more widely accepted among the learned 
 than the Darwinian theory of the Origin of Species. 
 Even doctors of theology and the occupants of 
 Christian pulpits embraced it with real or feigned 
 enthusiasm; and many of these went so far as to 
 declare that it exalted the Creator and inculcated 
 greater reverence for His methods in creation! 
 
 So enamored of this new teaching were these 
 sworn guardians of the "faith once delivered unto 
 the saints" that they readily surrendered all parts 
 of the Bible which seemed in any way in conflict 
 with it. To accommodate this surrender to their 
 consciences, these compromisers invented the 
 doctrine that "the Bible was not intended to teach 
 science," but was to be accepted and believed only 
 in so far as it related to spiritual and heavenly 
 things; forgetting the words of Christ: "If I have 
 
The Claim of the Bible ig 
 
 told you earthly things and ye believe not, how 
 shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" 
 (John 3:12). 
 
 That this surrender to the immature and 
 erroneous teachings put forth in the name of 
 science should have had the effect of destroying 
 the faith of many in the whole Scriptures was 
 inevitable. If men be taught that they cannot 
 believe what the Bible says regarding earthly 
 things, how can it be expected that they will 
 believe what it says about heavenly things? Only 
 a few years have passed since the time when, for 
 a man to question the foundations of this doctrine 
 of the Origin of Species, was to avow himself a 
 hopeless ignoramus touching the "settled results 
 of science"; and yet today the philosophy of Ma- 
 terialism is fast becoming (if it be not so already) 
 a mere historical phase of philosophic thought, to 
 be classified and labelled and put on the shelf, soon 
 to be contemplated merely as a thing which learned 
 men used to believe. 
 
 In the face of this fact it cannot be reasonably 
 supposed that any discoveries which science can 
 make, or any doctrines which philosophy can deduce 
 therefrom, will ever successfully contradict the dec- 
 larations of Scripture concerning the creation of 
 the universe by God, the disobedience of the first 
 Adam and the consequent loss of eternal life by all 
 his descendants, and the Divine provision of re- 
 demption by the forgiveness of sins through the 
 
20 The World and Its God 
 
 blood of Christ and a new birth into the last Adam. 
 How can we fail to perceive in this history of ''Evo- 
 lution" the truth that a theory which stands merely 
 *'in the wisdom of man" has an insecure foundation ? 
 Certainly a consideration of the collapse of 
 Darwinism will help us to understand why the 
 inspired Apostle so earnestly desired that the faith 
 of his disciples "should not stand in the wisdom of 
 men, but in the power of God" (I Cor. 2:5). 
 
 A doctrine which is established in the mind 
 merely by the force of human arguments can be 
 shaken by like arguments ; and it of necessity falls 
 for lack of support when the arguments by which 
 it was bolstered up are forgotten. But the doc- 
 trine which rests upon the Word of God has an un- 
 failing support. It needs no argument to sustain it, 
 and none has force enough to overthrow it. The one 
 question upon which reason has to pass judgment 
 is whether the Bible is in fact God's utterance. 
 If it be such, then the things which Spencerian 
 philosophy labels as "unknowable" are not only 
 not unknowable, but are revealed. "Eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
 for them that love him, but God hath revealed 
 them unto us by his Spirit" (I Cor. 2 :g, 10). 
 
 This Book makes extraordinary claims and ex- 
 traordinary demands upon men. It does not purport 
 to exhort, advise, or instruct, from the standpoint 
 merely of superior human wisdom or of superior 
 
The Claim of the Bible 21 
 
 intelligence or culture. Neither does it seek to com- 
 mend itself to man's acceptance on the score of ex- 
 pediency, advantage, or betterment. In these re- 
 spects, as in many others, it is radically unlike the 
 writings whereby men seek to help one another. It 
 bases its claim to acceptance entirely upon the oft- 
 repeated declaration, 'Thus saith the LORD.'* It 
 asks no favor of man because of its superior teach- 
 ings and high standards of life and conduct. The 
 very nature of the Book requires that, if we be log- 
 ical, we either accept it because "the mouth of the 
 LORD hath spoken it," or that we cast it aside as 
 the greatest of all htiman impostures. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE. 
 
 BECAUSE the Bible makes such extraor- 
 dinary demands and statements, it should 
 be most rigorously scrutinized before 
 it be accepted as the Word of God. We may 
 and must assume that the Word of God will have 
 characteristics whereby it may be distinguished 
 from the word of man; and it will be 
 obvious to us that those characteristics will be such 
 that the unlearned can distinguish it from all 
 human productions; or, to use the Bible phrase, 
 such that "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall 
 not err therein." 
 
 We shall not here attempt to set forth those 
 characteristics, which stamp the Bible as of Divine 
 origin, but will mention only what is perhaps the 
 chief — namely, the power of this Word to trans- 
 form the life of those who truly accept and believe 
 it.^ 
 
 What lies before the reader in the following 
 pages is an examination of the account which this 
 Book gives us of the conditions of humanity, as they 
 now are, and as they have been during all historic 
 
 *For an account of the marks of Divine origin in the 
 Holy Scriptures, see the present author's book, "Life in 
 the Word." 
 
Transformation of Life 23 
 
 times. This account is so radically opposed to the 
 teachings of the philosophy of Materialism, and so 
 repugnant to the natural self-esteem of man, that 
 it would be extremely difficult to account for its 
 presence in any philosophic system which was the 
 product of human thought. 
 
 We are here confronted by one of the distinguish- 
 ing characteristics of the Bible. It is the one Book 
 which declares man to be a fallen creature, and 
 his world to be a lost world. It is the one Book 
 which unsparingly condemns man, which finds 
 "none righteous, no not one," but all, without 
 any exception, "guilty before God." And yet, 
 instead of being rejected because of these declara- 
 tions, so offensive to the natural man, the Bible is 
 the one Book that has been translated into every 
 language and dialect, and is read and cherished by 
 some among every nation, tribe, and people. Surely 
 it has required superhuman power to accomplish 
 this! 
 
 The Bible itself — its history, its influence, the 
 wonders it has wrought in the lives of men, its 
 power in the world today — is an amazing and 
 stupendous fact, for which infidel philosophy has 
 never ventured to offer an explanation, and which 
 it can only ignore. This is but the beginning of 
 the tests which human reason may apply to the 
 claims of Scripture. It should, however, suffice, 
 since the only explanation which accounts for the 
 Bible is that it is the Word of God. 
 
24 The World and Its God 
 
 We ask, then, is it possible that the Biblical 
 explanation of man and the world can stand the 
 test of a scrutiny which the Darwinian explanation 
 of the "Descent of Man" could not survive? We 
 confidently assert that the Biblical explanation 
 accounts in a reasonable and thoroughly satisfactory 
 manner for the present and past conditions of hu- 
 manity in the mass, and of the nature of the indi- 
 vidual human being; and further, we assert that 
 there is now before us, with the facts which recent 
 discoveries have brought into our possession, no 
 explanation which can by any possibility account 
 for the world as it is, and has been, excepting tliat 
 given in Genesis— "The Book of the Generations of 
 Adam" (Gen. 5:1). And if we find this to be 
 indeed the case, if this ancient explanation survives 
 and prevails today over that which so recently 
 dominated the minds of men and was supposed to be 
 based upon all the accumulated knowledge of the 
 ages, must not the reason be that the ancient account 
 came from One who knows all things and needs 
 not that any man should instruct Him ? 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WORLD-SYSTEM : ITS ORIGIN. 
 
 MAN'S physical organization is such that 
 he cannot obtain, by any investigation 
 he is able to make^ the slightest infor- 
 mation concerning the causes of social conditions 
 as he finds them in the world, or concerning the 
 origin of the human family, or concerning the end 
 toward which the world movements are hastening. 
 Of these and kindred matters he cannot possibly 
 know anything except by Divine revelation. 
 
 To speculate touching such matters is foolish 
 and irrational in the extreme; for, apart from 
 revelation, we have no data from which inferences 
 may be drawn, and no possibility of securing such 
 data. Therefore, to one who inquires concerning 
 things spiritual and unseen, concerning the mys- 
 teries of sin, sickness, and death, and concerning 
 the tendency of the human heart to evil, the first 
 question to be settled is^ Have we a Divine revela- 
 tion? If he answers that question in the negative, 
 the inquiry is logically at an end. 
 
 We are not here entering upon a discussion of 
 the question whether or not the Bible is true. 
 Even the man who has not for himself decided 
 that question in the affirmative may nevertheless 
 profitably examine the explanation which Holy 
 
26 The World and Its God 
 
 Scripture gives of the great complex world-system 
 in which he finds himself. After so doing he will 
 be able to test that explanation ( i ) by the results of 
 his observation, (2) by the whole state of human 
 affairs as revealed to him in his intercourse with his 
 fellow-men and in his daily paper, and (3) by what 
 he finds in his own heart. And it may be that, as 
 the Scriptural explanation sheds its light upon the 
 mysteries and perplexities of human nature and 
 human history, he may not only come to compre- 
 hend the mysteries, but may also (which is of great- 
 er importance) come to realize that the light where- 
 by he has explored them is indeed Divine. 
 
 Scripture says that the state of humanity in all 
 its phases is the result of an experimental career 
 upon which the parents of the race embarked 
 in direct disobedience to the express com- 
 mand of God. It tells us further that the 
 conception of this experiment did not originate 
 with man, but was prompted by a spiritual Being 
 of great wisdom and power, who aimed to be man's 
 leader in spiritual matters and to direct his career. 
 We are not told what were the full results which 
 Satan hoped to accomplish by alienating the human 
 race from God and attaching it to himself, but we 
 do know that he seeks to be worshiped (Luke 4:6, 
 7; Rev. 13:4). It is, moreover, evident that his 
 plan did not disclose as its object the destruction 
 or the injury of the race ; but that, on the contrary, 
 he represented himself as solicitous for the well- 
 
The World System 27 
 
 being of humanity, and for the achievement by it 
 of the best possible results that are attainable apart 
 from God. 
 
 Because of ignorance of what the Scriptures 
 teach about Satan many people would violently 
 resent the statement that the world is following 
 his leadership. This statement, however, should not 
 provoke resentment. No candid person will deny that 
 the enterprise upon which men are engaged consists 
 essentially in the attempt to organize the best pos- 
 sible world, and to achieve the best possible condi- 
 tions that can be attained, apart from God. 
 
 Who, then is "the god of this world"; that is, 
 its spiritual leader and organizer, the person accord- 
 ing to whose ideals its activities are planned 
 and its course directed? Satan himself declared 
 that all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of 
 them are his, and that he can "give them to whom- 
 soever he will" (Luke 4:5, 6). This is a startling 
 declaration, and it is not one of his lies, fOr Scrip- 
 ture repeatedly confirms the statement that Satan is 
 the prince and god of this world (John 12:31; 
 14:30; 16:11 ; Acts 26:18; II Cor. 4:4). We wish to 
 grasp the import of this statement, and then to 
 test its probability by our observations of the great 
 and complex world-system which envelopes us. 
 
 Scripture tells us further that the parents of our 
 race were attracted by the supposed advantages 
 of the career upon which Satan urged them to 
 embark, the chief benefit of that career (as 
 
28 The World and Its God 
 
 set forth by the tempter) being the opportunity for 
 progress or self-improvement through the pursuit 
 and acquisition of Knowledge. The first human pair 
 exercised their power of choice by accepting the 
 career thus offered to them, thereby committing 
 the race to the consequences of that choice, the 
 first consequence being death, or separation from 
 God. 
 
 Here again we pause to note that the Bible 
 is the only Book which offers an explanation of the 
 stupendous fact of Death. Infidel philosophy can 
 but ignore it. Why should man die? Infidel phi- 
 losophy can give no answer. 
 
 According to Scripture, therefore, what we have 
 in the world-system around us are the consequences 
 of the acceptance by the human family of Satan's 
 programme and leadership, it having pleased God 
 in His wisdom to permit the working out of this 
 experiment until His time shall come for bringing 
 it to its inevitable end. 
 
 It is particularly to be observed in the Scripture 
 narrative that the Satanic programme, spread 
 before the first man and woman, contained only 
 what the natural mind adjudges to be a desirable 
 and legitimate object of pursuit. Only one thing 
 stood in the way, namely, a Divine commandment 
 which to all appearance was arbitrary. Under the 
 force of plausible reasoning that restraint was over- 
 come. God's wisdom and His love In Imposing it 
 were called in question. Man then,, for the first 
 
The World System 29 
 
 time, set himself to do what he has been prone to 
 do ever since — namely, to question and pass judg- 
 ment upon the expediency of a Divine command- 
 ment. He became, in a word, a "higher critic" ; that 
 is to say a man who assumes to criticize the Word 
 of God. Thus it was that the human family entered 
 upon the stupendous experiment of devising a 
 world-system according to Satanic principles. 
 
 The account of this momentous event given us 
 in Scripture is exceedingly brief, but every word is 
 charged with a Divine wealth of meaning. The 
 brevity of the account is one of its Divine char- 
 acteristics, since no human author could have dealt 
 with such an event in that fashion. God does 
 not tell us why, in the moral government of His 
 universe and in the sight of His intelligent crea- 
 tures, it was necessary that the great human experi- 
 ment should be suffered to unfold itself through 
 long centuries, until its failure should be demon- 
 strated at evei-y point ; but He has seen fit to give us 
 in concise form the history of the event which is the 
 cause of all that confronts us in the world around. 
 
 Let us study that history, and the more atten- 
 tively because it is, as a rule, grossly distorted 
 and grievously misunderstood. And let us not 
 fear to scrutinize it with the utmost rigidity, know- 
 ing that, if the account be true, we have here the 
 germ from which all human history, with its cries 
 and tears, "its oceans of blood and continents of 
 misery," has unfolded. If God has given this 
 
30 The World and Its God 
 
 account, it will not be an allegory. He will not 
 mock us in detailing the tragedy of His creation. 
 If it be true, we shall find its truth confirmed in the 
 social conditions of all the ages, and in the nature 
 of each human heart. If it be true, its impress will 
 certainly be observable upon the whole course of 
 human affairs and in the character of every human 
 being. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SEEDS OF DOUBT. 
 
 THE narrative which we read in the third 
 chapter of Genesis is severe in its brevity and 
 is quite ungarnished. The Narrator has there 
 described this tremendous event with superhuman 
 simplicity and calmness. He is not man, to delight 
 in the account 'of great wickedness or of a great 
 calamity. This is the tragedy of the universe, 
 and the heart of God is grieved. Hence, the 
 account is given in the smallest compass. It is 
 devoid of comment, moralizing, or exhortation. 
 There is no attempt to paint the scene, no indica- 
 tion anywhere of the human propensity to heighten 
 the effect by a single superfluous word. 
 
 The generation of the doubt. — At the outset 
 God's command is brought under discussion and a 
 question is asked: "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall 
 not eat of any tree of the garden?" 
 
 Turning from this question to consider in the 
 light of it the state of human nature, we find that 
 man recognizes himself as a moral creature who is 
 somehow invested with a sense of accountability. 
 We find also a universal tendency of the heart of 
 man to appease that sense of accountability by de- 
 bating whether God has really forbidden the desired 
 
32 The World and Its God 
 
 thing. In the life of every son and daughter of 
 Eve this scene has been many times repeated, with 
 the result that the clearly defined commandment 
 has been lost sight of in the fog of discussion, 
 question, and argument. But this is precisely what 
 we should expect to find if man's present state has 
 resulted from giving entrance to doubt and sus- 
 picion of God. Either that Is the explanation, or 
 we have none. 
 
 The tendency to disbelieve and to question God's 
 Word is undoubtedly the common legacy of the 
 descendants of Adam and Eve. This inherited trait 
 is not usually exhibited in an uncompromising 
 rejection and denial of the Word, but (as in the 
 incident given in the text, whereby the human 
 heart was first inoculated with the germ of 
 unbelief) the inherited trait is usually manifested 
 in the form of a disposition to shade the meaning 
 of the Word, to enlarge or diminish it, or to evade 
 by interpretation, professing all the time a laud- 
 able regard for the spirit (which may be anything 
 the interpreter likes) as a pretext for disregarding 
 the plain letter. 
 
 Many religious teachings which find favor with 
 man rely for their acceptance upon plausibility. 
 How often we hear the echo of this conversation : 
 "Has God really said?" "Surely God, who is all 
 love and tenderness toward His dear children, could 
 never have meant it ; for God doth know," etc., etc. 
 This has a very familiar sound. Where did it 
 
The Seeds of Doubt 33 
 
 originate, if not in the scene described in the third 
 chapter of Genesis? 
 
 The contradiction. — Doubt having been gener- 
 ated as the result of bringing God's command 
 under discussion, the adversary sets up his own 
 word in direct opposition to what God had said: 
 "Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that 
 in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be 
 opened and ye shall be as God, knov/ing good and 
 evil" (r. v.). 
 
 This doctrine is very comprehensive, and its 
 acceptance by the parents of our race has produced 
 effects bearing unmistakably its imprint— effects 
 which are everywhere and most palpably evident 
 in their descendants. The doctrine seeks to gain 
 favor by pretending to defend the character of 
 God against an implication of harshness and 
 seventy. "You are unjust to God," says the great 
 questioner, "in supposing that He would visit with 
 death a thing done with a laudable motive." Eternal 
 death is yet disproved to the satisfaction of many 
 by arguments professedly based upon the character 
 of God, upon His love and tenderness. This is a 
 religion that commends itself to the natural heart. 
 It has many forms and millions of adherents to- 
 day. Small wonder Is it that men wish to discard 
 or gloze over that part of the Word of God which 
 says plainly that these religions (though they be 
 termed "Christian") were derived, not from God, 
 but from Satan. 
 
34 The World and Its God 
 
 Then again, what trait is there which is more 
 common among men than the incUnation to beheve 
 the first article in Satan's creed: "Ye shall not 
 surely die"? That article of faith has been in- 
 corporated into many of the religious systems of 
 mankind. Its influence may be traced in all the 
 manifold attempts of man to disguise to himself 
 the real nature of death, and in all his attempts to 
 make that grim and hideous enemy — ^the wages of 
 sin — appear to be something different from what 
 it is. 
 
 "There is no death ; what seems so is transition," 
 says the poet ; and men quote this and like phrases 
 with almost religious fervor. What is this but 
 an echo of the first lie which was Imposed upon 
 mankind? We place flowers on the coffin and 
 speak of the "angel" of death, endeavoring with 
 such flimsy expedients to disguise the character of 
 this, "the last enemy that shall be destroyed." This 
 lie has, indeed, eaten deeply into human nature, 
 and where is there any explanation of that signifi- 
 cant fact, save in the holy Scriptures ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF SELF. 
 
 THE inducement which impelled the woman 
 and the man to commit the forbidden act 
 was the desire for self-improvement. The 
 promise was that they should become God-like. 
 
 As we look within and around us we cannot fail 
 to perceive that this inducement is still held out 
 as the great incentive to mankind. The Gospel 
 of Self, and particularly of self-improvement, is 
 vigorously promulgated, not only by the leaders of 
 the world-movements who make no religious pro- 
 fessions, but even by "eminent divines." Improve 
 yourself, strive ever upward and onward, make 
 something of yourself, rise to your highest possi- 
 bilities, get knowledge, he as gods! Is not this the 
 burden of the exhortations that are incessantly 
 sounded in the ears of mtv."^. 
 
 Philosophy takes note of the liability of repetition 
 of an act once committed, and of the effect of rep- 
 etition In the formation of hahlt. What more 
 plausible or satisfactory explanation can we have of 
 this fixed habit of devotion to self-improvement 
 than that given us In the Bible — namely, that it is 
 traced directly back through innumerable repeti- 
 tions to an act committed at such an early and 
 
36 The World and Its God 
 
 plastic stage of the race as to influence its entire 
 development ? 
 
 Put against this the equally striking fact that 
 the Bible is the only Book which directly opposes 
 this gospel of self-knowledge and self -improvement, 
 and we have data from which a mind not impaired 
 by the effect of sin could conclusively deduce the 
 Divine authorship of the Bible. Even if uninspired 
 men could conceivably produce a collection of 
 writings containing a central teaching so radically 
 opposed to the deepest-rooted human tendencies, it 
 would yet require an exercise of almighty power 
 to give that Book an influence among men exceeding 
 that of all other books combined ! 
 
 Whence, then, came this gospel of self, which 
 is in such direct opposition to the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ? The existence of the gospel of self-im- 
 provement is a fact, and it is the province of phi- 
 losophy to account for that fact. But again, we 
 have not here a choice between several explanations, 
 any one of which may be the true one. Either 
 that gospel was delivered to the human race in the 
 persons of its parents, or we know nothing about 
 its origin. 
 
 And does not the Divine origin of the Gospel of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ appear from Its direct oppo- 
 sition to the gospel of the natural man ? The teach- 
 ing of our Lord is to deny self (Matt. 16:24; Luke 
 9:23), instead of exalting or improving self; not 
 to be as gods, or even "to make a man of oneself," 
 
The Gospel of Self 37 
 
 but to "become as little children" (Matt. 18:3). 
 He teaches, not self-reliance, but self-distrust, and 
 reliance solely upon God. According to His in- 
 struction, we are not to develop our faculties to the 
 utmost, but to mortify the members which are on 
 the earth (Col. 3 :5). His witness is ever willing to 
 say "I must decrease" (John 3 :3o), even to the very 
 extinction of self, until he can joyfully exclaim, 
 ''Not I, hut Christ liveth in me'* (Gal. 2:20). 
 
 Just as was done in Eden, this gospel of self- 
 improvement has been proclaimed throughout the 
 ages, and is today proclaimed in the name of God 
 Himself, and by those who profess to speak as His 
 apostles. Of all this we have been duly warned; 
 ''For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, 
 transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 
 And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed 
 into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great 
 thing if his ministers also be transformed as the 
 ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be ac- 
 cording to their works" (II Cor. 11 :I3-I5). 
 
 The world is peopled today by worshipers of 
 the "progress" and "destiny" of humanity — a 
 progress which is effected, and a destiny which 
 is to be achieved, through the very means com- 
 mended by Satan to our first parents. Even those 
 who try to live according to the Word of God are 
 not free from the disposition to give praise and 
 glory to man for his wonderful achievements, and 
 for the supposed success which has attended his 
 
38 The World and Its God 
 
 strivings after progress in the direction chosen by 
 the first man at the instigation of Satan. 
 
 As we contemplate the complex world-system 
 which has resulted from the zealous pursuit, con- 
 tinued throughout the period of six thousand years, 
 of the Satanic doctrine of self-improvement by the 
 acquisition of knowledge, do we wonder that here 
 and there a voice is raised in appeal for the "simple 
 life"? And, as has been well said: "V/hat is 
 the simple life but to follow Christ?" The true 
 man of God has always been the man of the tent 
 and the altar. He has no part or interest in the 
 multitudinous affairs, pursuits, interests, and pleas- 
 ures of the world-system. His citizenship is in 
 heaven, and he looks ever ahead to a city that hath 
 foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God. 
 And the only Perfect Man who has yet trodden this 
 earth is One who in this world-scheme had not 
 even where to lay His head. He was cut off and 
 had nothing (Dan. 9:26, R. V.) ; and on the other 
 hand, He could say, "The prince of this world 
 cometh and hath nothing in Me" (John I4*30)- 
 The prince of this world had nothing in Him, and 
 He was cut off and had nothing in that world- 
 system whereof Satan is prince. They that 
 are His should be content to be like Him in "this 
 present evil world" from which He came to deliver 
 them (Gal. 1:4). 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT (II Coi*. II :I4). 
 
 WITH the acceptance by Adam and Eve 
 of the doctrine presented by Satan 
 and defined in Gen. 3:5, he became 
 the spiritual and religious leader of the human 
 race. He is still, and through all the ages has 
 been, the religious teacher of every child of Adam 
 who has not been born again. 
 
 Accustomed as we are to associate the prince of 
 this world chiefly with what is vicious and depraved, 
 and with the crimes and vices to which the baser 
 part of humanity become addicted, we are apt to 
 overlook another aspect of the character of Satan, 
 and to misapprehend the nature of his designs for 
 and upon his subjects. We question if the Devil 
 of Christendom, as generally represented, could 
 ever have gained ascendancy over mankind. But 
 the Devil of Scripture, the highest of all created 
 intelligences, greater, even in dignity than the 
 Archangel (Jude 9), ^is a very different personage. 
 The latter is more necessary to the explanation of 
 the condition and history of humanity, and of the 
 contradictions and mysteries of human nature, than 
 is the ether to the explanation of the phenomena 
 of light and electricity. 
 
 Not only is belief in the existence of such a 
 spiritual personage a thoroughly rational belief, 
 
40 The World and Its God 
 
 but, on the other hand, it is irrational to believe 
 otherwise. No explanation has ever been brought 
 forward which is capable of accounting for the 
 conditions, contradictions, and mysteries referred 
 to, except that given in the third chapter of 
 Genesis, 
 
 The moment we recognize the true character 
 of that being with whom our first parents closed 
 their bargain, we receive light upon the greatest 
 problems that perplex the human soul. The first 
 man, by the exercise of his power of choice, 
 committed the race to Satan's leadership. The latter 
 has done and is domg his very best, not so much to 
 drag men down, as to lift men up and to aid them 
 in working out their own destiny independently of 
 God and His purposes for mankind. Pride is the 
 lever used for the exaltation of men, and pride is 
 "the crime of the Devil." The fact that he has 
 succeeded so well demonstrates his great wisdom 
 and power. The fact that he has not succeeded 
 better demonstrates that his wisdom and power 
 are not those of Deity. That fact proves also that 
 God is necessary to the life and welfare of man. 
 This is the first lesson for the individual man. 
 
 Satan, perhaps, believed thoroughly in his own 
 system, and in his ability to lead this newly-created 
 race into conditions of self-satisfaction and self- 
 enjoyment. On this assumption we may well 
 believe that he is chagrined and disappointed 
 at the corruption, blemishes, and failures which 
 
As An Angel of Light 41 
 
 everywhere appear, and annoyed by the folly and 
 perversity of his followers in choosing vice, crime, 
 and dishonesty in preference to "high ideals" and 
 "noble aspirations." Knowing God in a way that 
 we do not, he could form an estimate of the scope 
 and chances he would have in assuming the leader- 
 ship of this race, should he succeed in attaching 
 it to himself. What he could not foresee was, 
 first, the follies into which the poor, helpless 
 creatures w^ould blunder when deprived of com- 
 munion with God; and second, the marvellous 
 work of redemption which Infinite wisdom would 
 evolve and Infinite love would execute. 
 
 Consider the results of this great experiment, 
 this joint-adventure of 'Devil and man, as those 
 results are spread before our eyes! Surely they 
 are great and impressive in their abundance and 
 variety; and notv/ithstanding all the failures, dis- 
 appointments, and ruins, and all the sad, dark, and 
 ugly features which cannot be hidden out of sight, 
 we must admit that "the god of this world" is a 
 personag-e of great intelligence and resourcefulness. 
 The world-system, apart from God's agencies and 
 people, who are in hut not of it, is marvellous in its 
 complexity and detail, as well as in the character 
 and variety of its activities. Its grandeur is un- 
 deniable, and it challenges our admiration; al- 
 though w^e perceive everywhere an incurable ten- 
 dency in the various parts of the system to fall 
 into disarrangement, disorder, and decay. 
 
42 The World and Its God 
 
 This wonderful system has worlds Within worlds. 
 We hear of the world of business, the world of 
 poHtics, the world of fashion, the world of pleasure, 
 the world of science, the world of sport, the world 
 of finance, the world of music, the world of 
 literature ; the dramatic world, tlie social world, the 
 industrial world, the commercial world, the religious 
 world. Everyone can have a share! This pro- 
 digious world-system includes monarchies, repub- 
 lics, despotisms, laws, customs, traditions, corpo- 
 rations, syndicates, trusts, banks, clubs, brother- 
 hoods, colleges, theatres, race-tracks, gambling- 
 halls, trades unions, philanthropies, liquor saloons, 
 brothels, inebriate homes and cures^ sanitariums, 
 reformatories, temperance societies, jails, libraries, 
 cemeteries, insane asylums, courts, legislatures, 
 stock markets, department stores, insurance compa- 
 nies, newspapers, magazines, automobiles, philoso- 
 phies, flying machines, fashions, cults, factories, 
 railroads, navies, armies, high explosives, sub- 
 marines, diplomacies, peace tribunals, hypnotism, 
 spiritualism. Christian Science, Higher Criticism, 
 New Thought, and religious systems to suit every 
 shade of opinion. To all these and other restless, 
 stirring, feverish activities, organizations and con- 
 trivances, is given the imposing title of "Civiliza- 
 tion," whose glorious mission is to go forward and 
 conquer the earth for man.^ 
 
 ^ In this connection, however, see Divine Agencies tn 
 the World (chap. xiv). 
 
As An Angel of Light 43 
 
 In such a system it should be possible to suit 
 everyone. There is something for the moral man, 
 something for the religious man, something for the 
 thoughtful man, something for the benevolent rnan, 
 something for the ambitious man, something for 
 the industrious man, something for the cultured 
 man, something for the idle man, something for 
 the vicious man. In a word there is something for 
 everyone, with a single exception. In the entire 
 system there is nothing for God's Perfect Man. For 
 Him this system had nothing; no place at the inn, 
 no place to lay His head — nothing but a manger, a 
 cross, and a tomb. Between Him and this world- 
 system there was nothing in common. Conse- 
 quently, when the time arrived for Him to say, 
 *'This is your hour and the power of darkness" 
 (Luke 22:53), the leaders and representatives of 
 the world's culture, the world's intelligence, the 
 world's progress, the world's power, and the world's 
 religion, led Him with expressive ceremony "out- 
 side the camp" and nailed Him to the tree. "And 
 sitting down they watched Him there" (Matt. 
 
 And now, patient reader, you who have read thus 
 far — ^perhaps merely from curiosit}^ to see how the 
 writer sustains a somewhat novel proposition — ^let 
 me pilt a question in deep seriousness: What do 
 you think of "this world," you who perhaps call 
 yourself by the name of that crucified One? Are 
 you quite sure that you are not one of that religious 
 
44 The World and Its God 
 
 throng who, on that day (and ever since) have 
 considered Him only to the extent of turning aside 
 during a brief period of leisure in order, while sit- 
 ting at ease, to contemplate and comment upon the 
 spectacle of His dying agonies ? To what extent are 
 your hopes and interests wrapped up in this evil 
 world, whose leaders placed Him there ; and how far 
 are 3^our affections set upon it? How much of your- 
 self would perish If this world-system were swept 
 off the earth the next moment? Is there any 
 possibility that you, too, are an indifferent 
 spectator of the scene which the world enacted on 
 Calvary? — that scene wherein were revealed both 
 the true nature of the world and also the limit of 
 the love of God? 
 
 And you, all you others who do not call your- 
 selves "Christians," yet who cannot avoid seeing, 
 however much you may try, that Figure nailed to 
 the cross, "is it nothing to you, all ye that pass 
 by?'' Surely, it is everything to you. 
 
 That, indeed, was their hour and the power of 
 darkness. His hour had not yet come; hut it is 
 coming. As surely as we have had Satan's leader- 
 ship and the very best world that men could 
 fashion upon his principles, so surely will we have 
 Jesus Christ and a world arranged and governed 
 upon His principles. "Be patient, therefore, 
 brethren, unto the coming of the Lord" (James 
 5 7). 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FAILURE OF THE SCHEME. 
 
 TRULY, this world-system is a marvellous 
 affair — stupendous, gigantic, remorseless, 
 terrifying! Seemingly composed entirely 
 of human elements, it is yet strangely unmanage- 
 able and perverse in human hands. If we study 
 any number of individual human beings of which 
 this prodigy is composed, we shall be utterly unable 
 to discover in them an explanation of some of its 
 characteristics and of its behavior as an organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Though composed apparently of human beings 
 and existing presumably for human beings, it 
 nevertheless devours men, women, and children 
 placidly and for trifling considerations- Society 
 will do what individual members of society would 
 be incapable of doing. The world has been aptly 
 compared to a slave-ship in which a few favored 
 passengers dance and make merry on deck, utterly 
 oblivious of the groans of a dense mass of suffering 
 humanity beneath. 
 
 Those who occupy the positions of worldly 
 advantage are forever soliciting the admiration 
 of mankind at large for this gigantic world-machine. 
 They never tire of calling attention to the wonders 
 of its construction and operation, and to the many 
 
46 The World and Its God 
 
 ingenious improvements which are from time to 
 time introduced into it. To bow down and 
 worship the Thing is, with many, an act of rehgion ; 
 and the mukitude are intellectually sand-bagged 
 into accepting the doctrine of the "progress of 
 man." 
 
 If anyone ventures to question this creed, and 
 to call attention to facts tending to show that the 
 progress of the world is not upward, but downward, 
 he is instantly denounced as a "pessimist" to 
 whom no heed should be paid. 
 
 And yet observers do note that the machinery 
 of the vast affair creaks fearfully at times, and 
 manifests strain at every joint; that there is a 
 woeful lack of harmony and co-ordination among 
 the various parts, and that only by the most 
 vigilant attention and by incessant repairs is the 
 thing kept in operation at all! It is undeniable 
 that, in spite of expedients and experiments, and 
 of all the care and labor bestowed upon the affair, 
 its parts are constantly getting out of gear, and 
 w^orking havoc with human life and human projects. 
 
 The only reason why the centrifugal forces of 
 evil have not long ago disrupted the whole affair 
 is because their tendencies have been checked by 
 the Divine Agencies, which are in the world, but 
 not of it. Those restraining influences are re- 
 served for consideration in a later chapter; but it 
 is pertinent here to remind the reader that he "who 
 now hindereth will hinder until he be taken out of 
 
The Failure of the Scheme 47 
 
 the way/' and that then shall come the full dis- 
 closure of evil in the person of ''that wicked one" 
 (II Thess. 2:7, 8). 
 
 Why, then, notwithstanding the manifest im- 
 perfections and failures of the system, does the 
 gospel of "progress" find such ready acceptance 
 among men? Upon the assumption of the truth 
 of Scripture the answer is clear and satisfactory. 
 It is because that is the gospel which was accepted 
 by humanity at the beginning of its present career. 
 Having chosen it^ man is reluctant to confess that 
 he committed a fatal blunder in so doing. He 
 rather clings to it with all the tenacity of super- 
 stition, and tries to persuade himself that he likes 
 the result of his choice. 
 
 But even so, the true character and tendency of 
 the world-system would be recognized by the 
 majority of thoughtful men and women, if they 
 were not under the blinding influence of the 
 egregiously erroneous notion that God, and not 
 Satan, is running the world. Ignorant but well- 
 meaning persons evolve such pleasing sentiments 
 as that ''God's in His heaven, all's well with the 
 world"; or they misquote (by partly quoting) 
 Romans 8:28, saying that "all things work 
 together for good"; and the careless multitudes 
 accept these as Bible truths. There is no deliver- 
 ance from the bondage of such errors except in 
 embracing the truth clearly taught in Scripture — 
 that Satan, and not Jehovah, is the god of this 
 
48 The World and Its God 
 
 present evil age; and that Satan, not Jehovah, 
 
 is directing its present activities. This teaching 
 accounts completely for everything which, on any 
 other hypothesis, is mysterious and perplexing. 
 
 The god of this gigantic world-system displays 
 great ingenuity and fertility in devising new ex- 
 pedients for temporarily curing the innumerable 
 defects which crop out in all parts of the organiza- 
 tion. We see activity on all sides, a patient build- 
 ing up of one place while another falls into decay, 
 a never-ceasing but never-successful effort to pre- 
 vent the decay of nations, the failures of govern- 
 ment, the oppressive use of power, the moral decay 
 of the prosperous classes, and the universal spread 
 of selfishness and corruption. Chiefly are the activ- 
 ity and ingenuity of Satan exercised in the mul- 
 titude of expedients whereby the minds of men 
 are occupied and diverted from contemplating and 
 inquiring into the reason of the inherent rottenness 
 of the world-system and the certainty of its ulti- 
 mate destruction. 
 
 It is evident enough to those who will but give 
 themselves a chance to think, that something is 
 vitally wrong with the system. Death is intrenched 
 at its heart. Crime and cruelty and misery in 
 many forms pervade it. Nothing is permanent. 
 "Change and decay in all around we see." The 
 presence of those grim advance-agents of destruc- 
 tion is detected in all things wherein man has a 
 part. Yet somehow the presiding genius of this 
 
The Failure of the Scheme 49 
 
 world-system contrives to keep men busy in one 
 way and another, and to keep alive the delusion 
 that, as a general proposition, "things are getting 
 better." Thus do the sons of Adam continue to 
 exhibit their inherited predisposition to the accept- 
 ance of that pleasing doctrine: "Ye shall not 
 surely die; ye shall be as God." 
 
 How admirably are all these world-activities 
 and occupations (which those who should know 
 better are accustomed to ascribe to Almighty God) 
 calculated to accomplish the great Satanic purpose 
 of hiding from men the Gospel of Jesus Christ! 
 How admirably do they serve the end of confirming 
 men in the fatal belief that humanity does not 
 need a Saviour! Let anyone try to conceive a 
 state of things which would better accomplish this 
 object than that state of things which prevails in 
 the world today, and he will speedily give ^*t up 
 as an impossibility. 
 
 How illuminating then are the words of the 
 Apostle in H Cor. 4:3, 4: — "But if our gospel be 
 hid, it is hid to them that are lost (or rather, as 
 in the r. v., "them that are perishing"), in whom 
 the god of this world hath blinded the minds of 
 them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious 
 gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should 
 shine unto them." 
 
 This is the meaning of it all; and we never 
 could have discovered that meaning for ourselves. 
 God alone could reveal it to us. Blfl now that He 
 
50 The World and Its God 
 
 has done so, we are without excuse if we refuse to 
 believe Him; and we have miserably failed in the 
 use of our natural intelligence if it does not, upon 
 examination of the conditions around us, confirm 
 His revelation. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE BIBLE SOLUTION. 
 
 IT is entirely safe to assert that, if any infidel 
 or agnostic philosophy had ever offered an in- 
 terpretation of the world which explained the 
 facts so clearly as does this Scriptural explanation, 
 it would have received and would have retained 
 universal acceptation. Why, then, is the explana- 
 tion given in the Bible so widely rejected? Here, 
 again, we have an extraordinary phenomenon, and 
 we must look into God's Word to ascertain that 
 this is another effect of the fall of man — ^namely, 
 the inherited tendency of the natural heart to 
 unbelief. 
 
 Yes, the vast system spread over the earth 
 is a perishing system, containing in itself the seeds 
 of decay. "The world passeth away, and the lust 
 thereof" (I John 2:17). That fact is plain enough 
 without the statement of Scripture. But what if 
 it be also true, as the Scripture declares, that they 
 who commit themselves to this system and its leader 
 shall surely perish with it and with him! 
 
 Are you, my reader, trusting for your safety 
 to your good character, to your pure motives and 
 kindly deeds; or are you perhaps trusting to the 
 chance that it will all "come right somehow*'? 
 Is your heart occupied with the affairs of this 
 
52 The World and Its God 
 
 world, its projects and ambitions, and are you for 
 
 your future happiness looking forward to the 
 working out of some detail of the world-system? 
 This (unless Scripture lies in its central part) is 
 the very purpose of that world-system ; whereas the 
 purpose of God is that our hearts should be occu- 
 pied with the invisible and eternal things, and our 
 outlook should be for the glorious appearing of 
 the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ (Titus 
 2:13). 
 
 In Scripture, then, we find a complete answer 
 to every question which arises in the mind con- 
 cerning the presence, at all times and everywhere 
 in human nature and human affairs, of sin, sickness, 
 and death, and concerning the presence in the 
 world, of accidents, corruption, and decay. The 
 answer to every such question is that this is not 
 God's worlds but Satan's. The characteristics 
 which we observe in the world's organization, and 
 in the way in which its functions are discharged, 
 are just such as would be expected in an organiza- 
 tion planned and managed by a personage such 
 as the Satan of Scripture is described to be — 
 namely, a fallen spiritual being of consummate wis- 
 dom, the highest of all created intelligences, the 
 head of vast powers and principalities, but com- 
 ing short of the power and wisdom of Deity, and 
 existing in a state of rebellion against God. 
 
 The great truth that Satan is "the god of this 
 world," which is absolutely needed for the under- 
 
The Bible Solution 
 
 53 
 
 standing of the existence of evil in the world, and 
 which Almighty God has revealed for the very 
 purpose of guarding us from the manifold dangers 
 arising out of Ignorance of it, is missed by many 
 who accept the Bible as the Word of God. These 
 are consequently In much danger and in needless 
 perplexity because of the abundant manifestations 
 of evil and imperfection in the world. In the 
 light of this important truth, all such perplexity 
 disappears, since It is obvious that those grievous 
 things, for whose presence we could not account in 
 God's world, are quite in place in Satan's world. 
 
 We read In Scripture that the earth is the Lord's 
 and the fulness thereof. Pie sends the rain and 
 the sunshine, and gives the increase of the field 
 and the fruits of the earth. But the world is 
 Satan's. His ownership of the world, so far from 
 being questioned by Scripture, Is strongly asserted 
 and acknowledged. Satan displayed to our Lord 
 "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of 
 them" (Matt. 4:8), and offered to give them to 
 Him upon one condition. The Lord refused the 
 offer, but did not question the ownership. Conse- 
 quently the world is still Satan's. The Lord Jesus 
 acknowledged this at a later time, saying, **The 
 prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in 
 me" (John 14:30), and the last of His apostles, 
 near the close of his long life, described the con- 
 dition of affairs, saying, "The whole world lieth in 
 the evil one" (I John 5:19, R. v.). The Lord 
 
54 The World and Its God 
 
 Jesus declared that the world hated Him because 
 He "testified of it that its works are evil" (John 
 7:y). He did not distinguish or bestow praise 
 on any of the works of this world-system upon 
 which men pride themselves, but pronounced 
 them all tmcompromisingly and unequivocally evil. 
 The man who dares do that is still hated. 
 
 It is well at this point to have in mind a further 
 and very striking characteristic of this great 
 organization which we call "the world." That 
 men should admire it is natural, considering the 
 part w^hich men have played in elaborating and 
 running it; but each individual knows full well 
 that the part he has performed has been largely 
 forced. He has been only to a very limited extent 
 a free agent, feeling always, and frequently recog- 
 nizing, the force of some one, or some thing, 
 unseen and yet potent in the affairs of the world. 
 
 This is clearly recognized in that very common 
 expression "the force of circumstances." What is 
 the force referred to In this conventional phrase? 
 Our object is to identify the person or the thing 
 by whom or by which is exerted the force that 
 makes the world what it is, and that compels men 
 and women to act as they do. Therefore, we take 
 due note of the many evidences of great wisdom, 
 ingenuity, skill, and energy which are displayed in 
 the conduct of the world's affairs. We must 
 acknowledge that, by these Indications, the great 
 
The Bible Solution 55 
 
 ability of the presiding genius of the world's affairs 
 is fully established. 
 
 But our observations do not stop there. The 
 evidences on every side of want of foresight, and 
 of failure to anticipate undesirable events and to 
 provide for emergencies, are too numerous and too 
 striking to be overlooked. They are also much 
 too serious to be made light of. Nations arm 
 themselves and make war against other nations; 
 men oppress their fellows; society separates into 
 hostile classes, whereof the upper stratum can 
 always hear the mutterings of the discontented 
 and oppressed beneath; trusted officials of 
 financial institutions default, or enrich themselves 
 by fraudulent practices; commercial organizations 
 thrive by systematic knavery; legislation is almost 
 openly bought and sold; municipal corruption 
 increases; and social morals decay with the in- 
 crease of wealth and culture. 
 
 Looking backward through the eyes of history 
 to the events of past generations, we observe that 
 —while man has always tried to put the best face 
 upon the social condition of his day, and has 
 always given the most favorable account of his 
 times — nevertheless, failure has been ever the 
 record of the human race. Nations rise and fall ; 
 and whenever another fair experiment in govern- 
 ment is attempted, under new conditions and with 
 all past experience for a guide, it Is only a matter 
 of time before the very ends sought for — increase of 
 
56 The World and Its God 
 
 wealth and power — show that they are but agents 
 of destruction. 
 
 What can explain all this so clearly as the fact 
 that the god and prince of this world, with all his 
 transcendent abilities, lacks the power and wisdom 
 of the Infinite? 
 
 As we write these lines, the attention of the 
 public is being drawn to surprising revelations of 
 dishonesty in the management of large Insurance 
 companies, revelations which would certainly 
 shock the moral sense of the community if the 
 community had any residuum of moral sense to 
 be shocked. One who looks at all beneath the 
 surface of these shameful disclosures cannot fail 
 to realize that they are but indications, surface 
 eruptions, of diseased conditions which lie deep in 
 human nature and human society. Once again, as 
 in the days before the Flood, the Lord God, look- 
 ing down from heaven, sees that ''all flesh has cor- 
 rupted its way upon the earth." Is it not so ? 
 
 And is it not also true that the very worst and 
 most significant feature of these revelations is 
 that they produce little or no expression of deep 
 or widespread public indignation? A few caustic 
 editorials appear in the newspapers, and a few 
 denunciations are heard from the pulpit; but the 
 people, as a whole, are indifferent, unmoved, or 
 what is even worse, are merely entertained. 
 
 Meanwhile, the blind and fatuous leaders of the 
 enterprises of the age and the exponents of th^ 
 
The Bible Solution 57 
 
 much-lauded "spirit of the age," continue to prate 
 of progress and improvement, of the conquests of 
 civiHzation, and of the great strides of science! 
 Only the few who have sought and obtained 
 wisdom from the sole Source of wisdom recognize 
 that the state of things around us now is "as it 
 was in the days of Noah." 
 
 And this is the outcome of the free applica- 
 tion of human genius and intelligence, backed 
 up by the amplest natural resources and aided by 
 every factor which is supposed to make for 
 progress ! 
 
 What conclusion is to be drawn from it, and 
 what remedy is to be applied? We hear "enticing 
 words of men's wisdom," such as "legislation," 
 "education," "culture," "publicity," "honest enforce- 
 ment of laws," etc. But who is so shallow 
 and ignorant as not to know that these have all 
 been tried, have done their utmost, and have 
 failed? The corruption now appearing in the 
 "highest circles," where education and culture 
 have done their utmost, where every experiment 
 of legislation has been attempted, and where every 
 natural incentive to honest dealing exists, has its 
 source in the heart of man. It flows from that 
 fountain of sin which sprang from the trans- 
 gression of the first Adam, and which can be 
 purified only by the fountain of life which springs 
 from the blood of the last Adam. 
 
 What sane conclusion, then, is possible but this, 
 
58 The World and Its God 
 
 that man's experiment has been tried out to the 
 very end? And what remedy remains, but that 
 which the arrogant and unbeHeving heart has 
 ahvays sought to avoid, but which God has always 
 urged in such words as these: "Look unto Me 
 and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I 
 am God, and there is none else" (Isa. 45:22)? 
 And do we not see written large and clear upon 
 the events of our day that but little time remains 
 wherein to learn wisdom, to heed the oft-repeated 
 warnings, and to turn unto Him before He leaves 
 His mediatorial throne, before the day of grace 
 is ended, and He comes again to shake terribly 
 the earth? 
 
 At this moment the chief executive of the 
 American nation, in the course of a series of 
 speeches, feels called upon to take notice of these 
 things, and here is his comment upon them : 
 
 "The man of great means who achieves fortune 
 by crooked methods does wrong to the whole body 
 politic. But he not merely does wrong to, he 
 becomes a source of imminent danger to, other 
 men of great means, for his ill-won success tends 
 to arouse a feeling of resentment, which, if it 
 becomes inflamed, fails to differentiate between 
 the men of wealth who have done decently and 
 the men of wealth who have not done decently. 
 
 "The conscience of our people has been deeply 
 shocked by the revelations made of recent years 
 as to the way in which some of the great fortune^ 
 
The Bible Solution 59 
 
 have been obtained and used ; and there is, I think, 
 in the minds of the people at large a strong feel- 
 ing that a serious effort must be made to put a stop 
 to the cynical dishonesty and contempt for right 
 which have thus been revealed. I believe that some- 
 thing, and I hope that a good deal, can be done by 
 law to remedy the state of things complained of. 
 "But when all that can be has thus been done, 
 there will yet remain much which the law cannot 
 touch, and which must be reached by the force of 
 public opinion." (Speech of President Roosevelt, 
 
 Oct. 2, 1905.) 
 
 The fact, however, is that the conscience of our 
 people has not been shocked in the slightest by 
 these revelations, and the best that a well-meaning 
 man, imbued with the so-called optimism of the 
 time, can give us is the hollo west of conventional 
 phrases, the futile suggestion (in which he can 
 hardly believe himself) that something "can be 
 done by law to remedy the state of things com- 
 plained of," and the reluctant confession that there 
 will yet remain "much which the law cannot 
 touch." It is safe to say that not one intelligent 
 person who reads this comment upon the most im- 
 portant existing condition of our national life will 
 have the least confidence in the remedial effect of 
 "the force of public opinion," to which dubious 
 agency our President commits this hideous and 
 loathsome disease in the vitals of the body politic. 
 It would be just as sensible to rely upon the force 
 
6o The World and Its God 
 
 of public opinion to arrest and turn back the ravages 
 of cholera or smallpox. But what else can be 
 suggested? Would it not seem that men would 
 be compelled at last to appeal to the power of God, 
 if only because of the manifest failure of every 
 other remedy? Will anyone say that it is the act 
 of a rational and enlightened mind to look rather 
 to the force of public opinion than to the return 
 of our Lord from heaven to bring in everlasting 
 righteousness? Are we not at last justified in 
 receiving this as our "blessed hope," and acknowl- 
 edging that there is none besides ? 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE promise of Satan began immediately to 
 be fulfilled, though not, we may be sure, 
 in the manner understood and expected 
 by his dupes. The woman ate of the fruit, and the 
 man followed her example. The man apparently was 
 prudent and willing to listen to, without taking 
 part in, the discussion between the woman and 
 the first critic of the Word of God. Ap- 
 parently he watched her experiment, and, seeing 
 that no visible harm followed, imitated her action. 
 Have we here the explanation of woman's influence 
 over man in spiritual matters and in affairs wherein 
 the affections are concerned? The resulf was, 
 indeed, the immediate acquisition of knowledge. 
 "The eyes of them both were opened, and they 
 knew that they were naked." 
 
 Moreover, this newly-acquired knowledge was 
 imnrediately applied to practical use, and mankind 
 forthwith entered upon its career of activity. "And 
 they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves 
 aprons." 
 
 In this short sentence the Divine source of the 
 narrative is clearly manifested to all who have 
 eyes to see. The two concise statements of 
 this sentence set forth the subjective and objective 
 
62 The World and Its God 
 
 consequences flowing from man's disloyalty to God 
 and his acceptance of the leadership of Satan. 
 Contained within this brief sentence, which is 
 devoid of comment and phrased with superhuman 
 simplicity, is an epitome of human nature and 
 human history. What the man and woman 
 immediately acquired was the now predominant 
 trait of self-consciousness. "They saw that they 
 were naked." Previously they were naked, but 
 "were not ashamed" (Gen. 2:25). 
 
 Goc?-consciousness has now been lost, and in its 
 place has come ^^//-consciousness; and henceforth 
 self-contemplation is to be the characteristic and 
 bane of mankind, laying the foundation for those 
 inner feelings or mental conditions comprehended 
 under the term "unhappiness," and for all the 
 external strivings whereby effort is made to attain 
 a better condition. 
 
 And what are all these efforts and activities 
 but further endeavors of the same sort as the 
 very first human effort, which history has thus 
 recorded for us, after man's departure on his career 
 of self-reliance? Is it not plain that the act here 
 recorded is the germ of all subsequent human 
 activities? Becoming conscious of self, and of 
 his deficiencies, no longer having a present God to 
 supply all necessities, and being, moreover, under 
 the delusion of the possibility of better conditions, 
 man begins to invent and contrive. He makes 
 himself an apron to cover his nakedness ; and this 
 
"Fig Leaves" 63 
 
 has been the occupation of his descendants to the 
 present day. The occupation thus handed on from 
 generation to generation takes a great variety 
 of forms, but through them all the nature and 
 object of the occupation remain the same. 
 
 Man was obviously not made for self -contempla- 
 tion, but rather to look away from himself. This 
 is apparent from' his very anatomy. Man is, as to 
 all his vital organs, practically hidden from himself. 
 The important functions of the body are carried on 
 by concealed apparatus and engines, — marvellous 
 contrivances whose operations and processes still, 
 after all these centuries of self-examination, remain 
 unsolvable mysteries. The processes of the mind 
 are absolutely inscrutable to the mind itself. The 
 senses are adapted to giving man information con- 
 cerning external things ; but concerning themselves, 
 or how they transmit information from without, 
 they can tell him practically nothing. Conscious- 
 ness, that mysterious reservoir wherein is gathered 
 all man's knowledge, contains no knov/ledge what- 
 ever of its own nature. What a calamity, there- 
 fore, has befallen a creature so organized, in be- 
 coming self-centered and addicted to ^^//-con- 
 templation ! 
 
 To this cause we may trace all morbid, unwhole- 
 some, and depressing mental states. This is 
 commonly recognized, and yet despite his own 
 efforts and despite all the manifold contrivances 
 wherewith the world is equipped, how difficult it 
 
64 The World and Its God 
 
 is for the natural man to avoid lapsing into self- 
 contemplation ! Indeed, knowing nothing better, 
 nothing higher ajid more important than self, his 
 thoughts must naturally gravitate to that object 
 as a centre when released from the control of the 
 will. There is nothing more attractive than child- 
 hood in its freshness and unconsciousness of self; 
 but when self-consciousness begins, the charm 
 disappears. Do we not see in this the profound 
 reason why the Lord Jesus Christ pointed to a 
 ''little child" as the type of those who shall 
 compose His Kingdom ? 
 
 And what is it that spurs men along the many 
 lines of human activity? Is it not the same sub- 
 jective condition which prompted the making of 
 the apron of fig-leaves — namely, man's conscious- 
 ness of some deficienc}^, and the desire to supply 
 it by his own efforts? This is only putting in 
 another form the oft-stated incentive to human 
 exertion — namely, the so-called "duty" of the 
 individual to develop what is in him, and thus to 
 rise to his "highest possibilities." 
 
 There is, mdeed (and it must not be ignored, 
 because it comes from God Himself), another 
 reason for activity on man's part — namely, the daily 
 recurring needs of the body. God declared it as 
 one of the consequences of man's disobedience that 
 in the sweat of his face he should eat bread. But 
 this is not the career^ nor was it included in the 
 career, Divinely appointed for man. On the con- 
 
"Fig Leaves" 65 
 
 trary, it is a penal consequence of his departure 
 from the Divinely appointed career. Man does not 
 by any natural impulse accept, nor does he without 
 protest accept, the "gospel of work." It is not 
 God's Word that declares incessant toil to be the 
 purpose for which he was created. This, again, 
 is a doctrine which proceeded from a very different 
 source. 
 
 Moreover, it is one thing to labor for the 
 necessities of the mortal body, and it is another 
 and very different matter to labor for the success 
 of Satan's world-scheme. Following but a short 
 way down the stream of human history w^hich had 
 its source in the Garden of Eden, we observe that 
 it was Cain's descendants who builded a city, who 
 invented metal-working, who devised musical in- 
 struments, and who first composed poetry in praise 
 of the doings of man (Gen. 4:17-24). 
 
 Those whose occupation is "to serve the living 
 and true God and to wait for His Son from heaven" 
 (I Thess. I :g, 10) have no share in the occupation 
 which absorbs the great mass of humanity — namely, 
 the futile attempt to make earth a satisfactory 
 habitation for man apart from God. Recognizing 
 that the experiment to which Adam committed 
 his family was the attempt to achieve a destiny 
 without Divine aid, those who have received the 
 truth of God into their hearts, and have been made 
 thereby wise unto salvation, understand that the 
 end will be a failure which will be recognized by 
 
66 The World and Its God 
 
 all in the light of His presence, and the destruction 
 of all the works that men have so laboriously 
 wrought. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "where art thou ?" 
 
 IF, then, one admits the truth of God into his 
 heart, which every man may do if he will, 
 the real state of the world's affairs will be 
 made plain to him; and he will understand from 
 the drift of those affairs, as well as from the revela- 
 tion of God in the Scriptures, the end to which 
 the world is hastening. His concern will then be 
 to know if God has a remedy. 
 
 Manifestly, our knowledge of God's remedy can 
 come only through revelation; and again we are 
 confronted by the fact that, if the Bible be not 
 God's written word, we have no revelation, and 
 consequently no remedy. The inquiry, therefore, 
 cannot be pursued except upon the assumption that 
 the Bible is God's revelation to His creature, man. 
 If that Word be true, then we know that God 
 began immediately after man's departure to seek 
 his recovery; and the unfolding of the Divine plan 
 of redemption is most satisfying to the regenerated 
 mind and heart. 
 
 The very first words of Him whose holy law had 
 "been broken and whose love had been suspected 
 and spurned, reveal Him as seeking His fallen 
 creature. "Where art thou?" is the question; 
 and from that moment to the present we have the 
 
68 The World and Its God 
 
 redemption of man proclaimed as the purpose of 
 Jehovah, to be fulfilled in the person of the Eternal 
 Son, who in the fulness of tim^ came "to seek and 
 to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). He 
 came also to destroy the works of the Devil 
 (I John 3 :8) ; and since man learned his way from 
 the Devil, we are not surprised to learn that God's 
 ways are very different: "For my thoughts are 
 not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
 saith the LORD" (Isa. 55:8). 
 
 Accordingly, He bids us no longer to contemplate 
 self, but to contemplate Him — "looking unto 
 Jesus" (Heb. 12:2), to "consider the Apostle 
 and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus" 
 (Heb. 3:1), and to look "not at the things that 
 are seen, but at the things that are not seen" (H 
 Cor. 4:18). He bids us to cease from the vain 
 attempt at the improvement of the old nature, 
 which cannot be made fit for the presence of God, 
 but is hopelessly corrupted and doomed to death, 
 and offers instead, to all who believe on Him, a ne70 
 nature, "born not of corruptible seed, but of in- 
 corruptible" (I Pet. 1:23) ; for "if any man be in 
 Christ, he is a new creature" (H Cor. 5:17). He 
 bids us cease from the futile attempt at supplying 
 our own deficiencies and covering ourselves with 
 our own righteousness ; for Christ is of God made 
 unto us righteousness (I Cor. 1:30). He would 
 have us all. as did His servant Paul, count all 
 things that the world can offer us as refuse, in 
 
"Where Art Thou" 69 
 
 order that we may gain Christ and be found in 
 Him, not having a righteousness of our own, but 
 that which is from God by faith, that we may 
 know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and 
 the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming con- 
 formed unto His death (Phil. 3:8-10). 
 
 In one word, God's remedy for the havoc wrought 
 by the first Adam is Christ, the last Adam, in whom 
 all the purposes of God in the creation of man will 
 be fulfilled, and in whom all the promises of God 
 are Yea and Amen (H Cor. 1:20). 
 
 God assures us that He Himself has undertaken 
 and accomplished the work of redemption, and that 
 our part is, not to work, but to believe and accept 
 the work done for! us. For justification is, "to 
 him that worketh not, but believeth on him that 
 justifieth the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5); or, as else- 
 where stated by our Lord Himself: "This is the 
 work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath 
 sent" (John 6:29). The original sin was unbelief 
 and distrust. Eve disbelieved in her heart- Hence 
 belief with the heart is the turning point of man's 
 conversion (Rom. 10 :io). Man must turn with his 
 heart to God and confess the crucified and risen 
 Saviour. More than this is not required for salva- 
 tion, hut less will not serve. 
 
 It is possible, alas! to have an intellectual com- 
 prehension of all this, and yet not be united with 
 Christ by the Spirit of God. One may arrive at 
 the conclusion, upon examination of the conditions 
 
70 The World and Its God 
 
 within and around him, that the record of Genesis 
 is, indeed, that of an actual historical event. He 
 may even thereby become satisfied that the Scrip- 
 tures are inspired throughout; and yet he may 
 have no real knowledge of Christ, and may belong 
 wholly to this perishing world. For saving faith 
 is of the heart. One must be brought by the 
 Spirit of God under conviction of sin (the sin of 
 unbelief), and be born again by acceptance of Jesus 
 Christ' as the Saviour, and as the one and only 
 way of coming to the Father. 
 
 The foregoing pages have not been written for 
 the purpose merely of vindicating the historical 
 character of the third chapter of Genesis. To con- 
 vince the intellect of the reader as to this would 
 be of no advantage, unless the conviction goes 
 farther and reaches his heart. The best and most 
 convincing of human arguments affords no certainty 
 to the mind and no peace to the heart. One may 
 today be persuaded by argument to give intel- 
 lectual assent to a doctrine, and begin to doubt 
 its truth tomorrow when the steps of the argu- 
 ment that wrought conviction slip from his memory. 
 The Word of the Living God alone can impart 
 absolute conviction and afford a permanent basis 
 for certainty. When belief in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, the incarnate Word of God, is wrought in 
 the heart by the operation of the Holy Spirit, faith 
 comes to abide eternally; for it is accompanied by 
 such a work of grace, such conviction and light, 
 
"Where Art Thou" 71 
 
 and such manifestations of Divine Presence and 
 power, that the heart necessarily surrenders itself 
 with full confidence to His keeping. 
 
 "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall 
 never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of 
 My hand" (John 10:28). 
 
 Nevertheless, an appeal to the reason should not 
 be in vain ; for, as the result of intellectual convic- 
 tion, one may be induced to act upon the truth 
 which has been intellectually apprehended. The 
 object of these pages, therefore, is to rouse the 
 indifferent and callous soul to action — to the making 
 of a choice between Satan's world and God's, 
 between the way of life and the way of death. 
 ''Behold," says the LORD, "I set before you the way 
 of life and the way of death" (Jer. 21:8). You 
 have a will, my friend, and you have the power to 
 exercise it in this matter. If persuaded in your 
 mind of the truth of God's Word, or if only partly 
 persuaded, call upon Him! Say, "Lord, I believe: 
 help Thou mine unbelief !" Ask Him to show you 
 whether these things be true, to give you His Holy 
 Spirit according to the promise (Luke 11:13), and 
 to reveal the Lord Jesus to you, not only as the 
 Saviour of the world, but also as the Saviour 
 of your individual soul. Ask Him for faith, 
 which is not, as many seem to suppose, be- 
 lieving something without foundation, but is the 
 very "evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11 :i), 
 
^2 The World and Its God 
 
 evidence of the highest value because proceeding 
 from God Himself. 
 
 "Where, then, is the seat of faith? Not in the 
 intellect, which sees the logical connection or the 
 historic evidence; nor in the imagination, which 
 recognizes the beauty and organic symmetry, and 
 reproduces the pictures; not in the conscience, 
 which testifies to the righteousness and truth of 
 the revelation: but in a something which lies 
 deeper than these, in which all these center, and 
 to which all these return. It is with the heart, 
 as Scripture teaches, that man believeth. There, 
 whence are the issues of life — emotional, intel- 
 lectual, moral, spiritual — in that secret place to 
 which God alone has access, God's Word as a seed 
 begets faith, God's Word as a light kindles light, 
 and the man becomes a believer" (Saphir). 
 
 Such is the nature of saving faith, which all 
 may have who will seek it from tlie Author of 
 faith, and which they only who possess it can 
 comprehend. We cannot impart our faith to 
 another, but we can witness to God who gave it, 
 and can tell to others how they may obtain "a 
 like precious faith with us in the righteousness of 
 our God and Saviour, Jesus Christ" (II Peter i :i). 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DECEIVER OF THE WORLD. 
 
 SATAN is given, among other descriptive 
 titles, that of "the deceiver of the whole 
 world" (Rev. 12:9, r. v.). Jesus Christ 
 is truth, life, and light. Satan is deception, dark- 
 ness, and death. The world, as now organized, is 
 full of "the deceivableness of unrighteousness." 
 In order to have the capability of deception, the 
 spurious thing must closely imitate the genuine. 
 A lie does not deceive unless it has the guise of 
 truth. The deceptive contrivance or device, in 
 order to fulfil the object of its author, must have 
 the promise and appearance of desirable properties 
 while lacking the substance thereof. 
 
 The characteristic of deceitfulness may be dis- 
 covered in Satan's world-scheme at whatever point 
 it may be closely scrutinized. Scripture speaks 
 of the "deceitfulness of riches" (Matt. 13:22), 
 and this may well serve as the typical illustration 
 of the subject, because there is in our day no 
 other object so prominently set up by men before 
 their own eyes as worthy of their most strenuous 
 efforts, no other subject in the ardent pursuit of 
 which so many human beings are intently engaged, 
 as the acquisition of money. From generation to 
 generation man's experience has uniformly wit- 
 
74 The World and Its God 
 
 nessed to the truth of the Scriptural statement 
 touching the deceitfulness of riches; and yet the 
 power of deception therein was never greater in its 
 intensity or more disastrous in its resuUs than at 
 the present day. The amassing of colossal for- 
 tunes is one of the striking characteristics of the 
 age. Men are, indeed, heaping up their treasure in 
 the last days (James 5:3). No natural explana- 
 tion will account for the deceptive power of riches. 
 It can only be understood in the light of the expla- 
 nation of Scripture that Satan is the god — that is to 
 say, the architect, constructor, and engineer — of this 
 world-system, and that his character inheres in 
 his work. 
 
 But let the scrutinizing gaze of the inquirer be 
 directed to any other object which the director of 
 the world's affairs places before the minds of men, 
 and he will perceive that the same quality of 
 deceitfulness resides in them all. The apostle 
 speaks of the ^'deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:13) 
 and of its hardening effect upon the nature of man. 
 This brief word of Scripture is a veritable search- 
 light whereby the depths of human nature and the 
 very core of the world-system may be explored. 
 It is beyond question a ray of the "true light." 
 Sin is deceitful, and men are beyond controversy 
 hardened thereby. The truth of this appears on 
 all sides. 
 
 Is there, then, no one to whom we may go; no 
 one in whom there is no deceit and no darkness at 
 
The Deceiver of the World 75 
 
 all? Yes, there is One, even He of whom God 
 says, "This is My beloved Son, hear Him." And 
 if we heed this command and listen to His 
 words, what do we hear Him say concerning this 
 world through which we are now passing? He 
 has many things to say on this subject, solemn, 
 pointed, urgent words. He says that it shall not 
 profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose 
 his own soul (Matt. 16:26). He says that if we 
 are of the world the world will love us, for it loves 
 its own; but that they who are His are not of the 
 world, because He has chosen them out of the 
 world, and that therefore the world hates them 
 (John 15:19). He says that if the world hates us 
 we may know that it hated Him before it hated 
 us (5:18). He foretold that the world would 
 rejoice at His death (John 16:20), and declared 
 that His disciples were not of the world, even as 
 He was not of the world (John 17:14). The 
 Apostle who was closest to His heart gives us a 
 picture of the men of the world and the theme of 
 their talk, saying, "They are of the world, there- 
 fore speak they of the world, and the zvorld heareth 
 them" (I John 4:5). Whoever has something to 
 say in praise of the world, however false his flat- 
 teries may be, is sure of an audience. And through 
 the same Apostle God speaks these piercing 
 words : — 
 
 "Love not the world, neither the things that are 
 in the world. If any man love the world, the 
 
76 The World and Its God 
 
 love of the Father is not in him. For all that is 
 in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust 
 of the eyes, and the vainglory of life, is not of 
 the Father, but is of the world. And the world 
 passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that 
 doeth the will of God abideth for ever" (I John 
 2:15-17, R. v.). 
 
 What can this be but the direct consequence of 
 the event described in the third chapter of Genesis ? 
 All the outward manifestations of evil in the 
 world are classed, in the above quotation, under 
 three heads. Those manifestations have no ex- 
 planation, and are absolutely incomprehensible 
 without the event recorded in that chapter. With 
 it "all that is in the world" is intelligible. The 
 mother of all mankind "saw that the tree was good 
 FOR food'' — the lust of the flesh; "and that it was 
 A DELIGHT TO THE EYEs"— the lust of the cyes ; "and 
 that the tree was to be desired to make one wise" 
 — the vain-glory of life. 
 
 Is it possible for any rational man, after paying 
 the slightest attention to these Scriptures, and 
 perceiving but a small fraction of the magnitude 
 and universality of the truth contained in these 
 few words, to doubt that they are from God? 
 Surely it must be plain, upon the briefest con- 
 sideration, that no man could have furnished that 
 explanation at the time the first book of the Bible 
 was written (or, indeed, at any time), or have 
 given the complementary cpinment upon it which 
 
The Deceiver of the World 77 
 
 we have received through the last of the inspired 
 writers. This is not man; it is none other than 
 the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, and 
 the Living One, who is, and who was, and who is 
 to come (Rev. i). 
 
 But men love to be deceived. This is a common 
 trait of humanity; and what can account for this 
 fact but the explanation that the race, in Adam, 
 submitted voluntarily to the influence of the 
 deceiver of the world? This willingness to be de- 
 ceived is strikingly evinced by the readiness with 
 which the natural man gives ear to all who teach 
 the pleasing doctrine that existmg conditions are 
 in the main satisfactory, and, anyhow, are steadily 
 improving. We are exhorted to listen to the throb 
 of the twentieth-century activity and to keep in step 
 with the march of progress. And if this be too 
 materialistic for some, the same vague and mean- 
 ingless sentiments are put into various religious 
 settings; as in a recent New Year's greeting to his 
 flock by an eminent divme, the central exhortation 
 was to "bow before the sacred shrine of humanity." 
 Will any reader be surprised to hear that there 
 was a demand for, and a wide distribution of, this 
 greeting? Such phrases as these, whereof every 
 worldling, whether clerical or secular, has a goodly 
 stock, possess an amazing power of deception, pro- 
 ducing upon the natural mind the effect of m- 
 tellectual anaesthesia, an effect which cannot be 
 
7^ The World and Its God 
 
 accounted for save by the event recorded in the 
 third of Genesis. 
 
 Other evidences of the present working and wide- 
 spread effects of this power of deception might be 
 muhiplied. We see it in the very general love of 
 men for the improbable and unreal, and in the many 
 ways in which human credulity manifests and grati- 
 fies itself; in the fondness for fiction, works of the 
 imagination, romances, theatrical representations, 
 so-called spiritualistic seances, feats of legerdemain, 
 tales of occult happenings— in a word, anything and 
 everything which represents unreality as reality, or 
 which aims to cheat the senses. Falsehood has thus 
 a power even to entertain, to administer gratifica- 
 tion, and to divert the mind, though it can never 
 satisfy the heart of man; and when falsehood is 
 presented in attractive forms and with practiced 
 skill, it is even exalted as "Art," and to it high re- 
 ligious authorities attribute a beneficial influence; 
 and it even finds its way into the churches. 
 
 Not such is the teaching of the Word of God. 
 The man who is controlled thereby finds his delight 
 in the law of the Lord. His enjoyment is not in 
 "foolish talking and jesting, which are not con- 
 venient"; but he talks of all "His wondrous works" 
 (Ps. 105), God's words are in his heart; and he 
 talks of them when he sits in his house, and when 
 he walks by the way, and when he lies down, 
 and when he rises up (Deut. 6 :6, 7) . Over him the 
 
The Deceiver of the World 
 
 79 
 
 deceiver has no power ; for having been enlightened 
 by the Word of God, he is not ignorant of the de- 
 ceptive devices of .ii;; enemy. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 IMAGINATIONS. 
 
 THE pursuit by the natural man of first one 
 and then another of the many forms 
 which unreahty takes, and the willingness 
 on his part to be deceived, which the man himself 
 recognizes even while he yields to it, are evidences 
 of his lost condition. Until he comes under the 
 convicting work of the Holy Spirit, man will shun 
 the truth that he has lost fellowship with 
 God. Yet his very willingness to hear of some- 
 thinig improbable, and to invest it with attributes 
 of reality, is a perpetual witness to the conscious 
 lack of something which is outside all worldly ex- 
 periences, which the world knows nothing of, and 
 which the natural man knows nothing of ; for "the 
 natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither 
 can he know them, because they are spiritually 
 discerned" (I Cor. 2:14). 
 
 The readiness of the mind of man to accord to 
 falsehood that acceptance which, in a clear and un- 
 fallen mental state would be accorded only to 
 truth, may be seen in the prevalence throughout 
 the whole world of idolatry, superstition, and 
 false religion. The heathen world, embracing more 
 than two-thirds of the living human beings, is 
 
Imaginations 8i 
 
 completely under the sway of falsehood and dark- 
 ness. But the so-called civilized peoples exhibit 
 precisely the same tendencies. Religious, medical, 
 and other impostures flourish in the centers of 
 highest intelligence; and it is safe to say that no 
 man is free from the inherited tendency to give heed 
 and credence to the improbable and the untrue. 
 
 And when men are not thus occupied, as were 
 the x\thenians, who "spent their time in nothing 
 else but either to tell or to hear some new thing," 
 they fall into the mental occupation of "exercising 
 the imagination." Whatever that faculty may 
 have 6een intended for, its chief exercise in fallen 
 man is to spin long skeins of falsehood, presenting 
 to the mind a succession of unrealities and im- 
 possibilities in great variety. The fact that their 
 character is known does not Interrupt the process ; 
 and like the objective diversions in which men 
 engage to "kill the time" while hastening on to 
 eternity, these imaginations serve to crowd out all 
 profitable subjects of m.editation, and to exclude 
 the knowledge of God. Therefore, the Apostle 
 speaks of one phase of the Christian warfare as 
 "casting down imaginations, and every high thing 
 that exalt eth itself against the knov/ledge of God, 
 and bringing every thought into captivity to the 
 obedience of Christ" (II Cor. 10:5). 
 
 There is a spiritual consequence which men bring 
 upon themselves by having "received not the love 
 of the truth"; and that consequence is the sub- 
 
82 The World and Its God 
 
 ject of our present consideration — namely, that 
 they are always ready "to believe the lie/' easily 
 subject to "strong delusion," and exposed to all 
 "signs and lying wonders," and to all "deceivable- 
 ness of unrighteousness" (II Thess. 2:9-11). 
 
 Such are the effects not only spread plainly in 
 view on every hand, btit within the common ex- 
 periences of every heart; effects of what? Is 
 there any explanation, which even purports to ac- 
 count for those effects and to state the cause of 
 them, save only the information given in the third 
 of Genesis ? We know of none other. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DIVINE AGENCIES IN THE WORLD. 
 
 ALTHOUGH the affairs of the world are at 
 present in the control of Satan, and are 
 directed according to his policy; and 
 although the time when the sovereignty of the 
 world shall become the sovereignty of our God and 
 of His Christ is yet in the future (Rev. 11:15), 
 there are, nevertheless, Divme Agencies now acting 
 in the world, and acting with almighty power to 
 accomplish God's purpose for this age. Because of 
 the presence of these Divine Agencies the world is 
 a very different affair from what it otherwise would 
 be. The presence in it of even a small number of 
 believers who truly have the Spirit and the 
 testimony of God affects the character of the 
 whole. Moreover, in all the unfoldings of human 
 history, even while man has been permitted freely 
 to choose his own way, God has, nevertheless, been 
 overruling, has been steadily executing the counsels 
 of His own will, and has been making even the 
 wrath of men to praise Him. We have thus far, 
 and for the sake of the clearer treatment of the 
 subject, made but slight reference to these Divine 
 Agencies. Let us now briefly consider them, and 
 learn what God is accomplishing through them 
 during this present dispensation. 
 
84 The World and Its God 
 
 It has pleased God, for reasons which He has not 
 revealed to His creatures, to permit the experiment 
 upon which humanity entered in Eden to be 
 worked out to its present stage, and it has also 
 seemed good to Him to give full opportunity for 
 a disclosure of the results of Satan's leadership. It 
 has required many centuries for the working out of 
 this experiment, but in God's sight these have been 
 but as a few days; and when the end is reached 
 God will be justified and every mouth will 
 be stopped (Rom. 3:19). But God has not aban- 
 doned His creature to be destroyed with his own 
 experiment. On the contrary, He has always pro- 
 vided a way of return to Himself. This way has 
 ever been accessible, and has been sought and found 
 by those who have perceived the folly of sin and of 
 continuing the vain attempt to make an abode of 
 comfort and blessing in a Godless world. 
 
 During the age in which we live the Divine 
 Agencies in this world (which Agencies while in it 
 are in direct opposition to its projects, occupations, 
 and diversions, and particularly in opposition to 
 its god and prince) are the Written Word and the 
 Holy Spirit. The Word Is given as the basis of 
 faith — to the end that men may believe to the 
 obtaining of eternal life (John 20:31). The mission 
 of the Holy Spirit is to convince men of the sin 
 of unbelief, of the righteousness of Christ, which 
 is freely offered to all, and of the judgment of sin 
 which He bore for all who accept Him (John 
 
Divine Agencies in the World 85 
 
 16:8; I Cor. 1:30; Rom. 8:1). In giving to the 
 world His Word and His Spirit God is not convert- 
 ing the world (Scripture does not promise that such 
 will be the result of preaching the Gospel), but is 
 ''taking out from the nations a people for His name" 
 (Acts 15:14). 
 
 This is the work of God in this age, as clearly 
 announced in the inspired Scriptures given at its 
 beginning. Anyone endowed with the most ordi- 
 nary powers of observation can see for himself this 
 work now going on ; and though it be but one here 
 and another there who is seen to turn from "the way 
 of the world" and to seek the only true and 
 "living way," the aggregate is "a great multitude 
 which no man can number." 
 
 No explanation save that of Scripture can 
 account for the world. No explanation save that 
 of Scripture can account for the Church of Christ. 
 If men would but apply in this case the same 
 process of reasoning that they employ in other 
 matters, and would accept the conclusions to which 
 that process leads, the Scriptural explanation 
 would, upon these facts alone, be accepted by all 
 thoughtful persons. But the scientific man ceases 
 to be scientific, and the philosopher ceases to be 
 philosophical, and the rationalist ceases to be 
 rational, just when he comes to these matters of 
 highest importance. Here is another remarkable 
 fact ; and again we have no explanation of it save 
 that given in Scripture. Why should this be so, 
 
86 The World and Its God 
 
 were it not that the god of this world succeeds in 
 bHnding the minds of the unbeUeving lest the light 
 of the Gospel of the glory of Christ should dawn 
 upon them (II Cor. 4:4)? 
 
 This, then, is the doctrine of Scripture:— the 
 command which Scripture gives to the believer 
 is to live in the world as one who does not belong 
 to it, as a stranger in it and a pilgrim through it, 
 as a foreigner whose "citizenship is in heaven" 
 (Phil. 3:20, R. v.). 
 
 This command is to be received not merely as 
 a pious sentiment, but as a living and governing 
 principle — ''be ye separate." And what else would 
 one wish who recognizes the truth? Truth has 
 ever a sanctifying (i. e. separating) effect. The 
 Lord Jesus prays for His followers, saying: 
 "Sanctify them by Thy truth; Thy Word is 
 truth" (John 17:17). If one beUeved the truth 
 as declared by Jesus Christ, he would desire, if but 
 as a matter of expediency, to withdraw himself 
 from, and to sever every tie connecting him with, 
 the perishing order of things which is administered 
 by Christ's enemy. How much the more, if he 
 knows, loves, trusts, and waits for the Lord Jesus, 
 will he wish to find no satisfaction, ease, comfort, 
 or pleasure, in a system whose leaders cast Him 
 out and crucified Him, and who would do the same 
 today ! 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE WAY OF DELIVERANCE. 
 
 "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver 
 us from this present evil age, according to the will of 
 God and our Father" (Gal. i;4). 
 
 THE foregoing picture of the world is one 
 to fill the heart with awe and gloom; 
 and well it might if this were all that 
 Scripture revealed on this subject. We know 
 now — that is, if we believe the Bible — how this 
 vast organization came into existence, and who is 
 its presiding genius. This information, however, 
 is not all the truth which the Bible discloses 
 concerning this earth, which was created to be 
 man's habitation. It is only the dark story of the 
 past and present. But there is a future. While 
 the world in its present condition is aptly described 
 in Scripture as "this present darkness," we are 
 not left to grope our way through that darkness. 
 
 We are, indeed, in "a dark place," but we have a 
 light bright enough to guide us through it. *'We 
 have also a more sure word of prophecy; where- 
 unto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto 
 a light that shineth in a dark place'* (H Pet. I :i9). 
 We have, indeed, an enemy who is full of guile; 
 but if we avail ourselves of our Bibles, "we arc 
 not ignorant oi his devices" (II Cor. 2:ii). 
 
88 The World and Its God 
 
 Unfortunately for the whole world, this light of 
 prophecy, given for the special purpose of guiding 
 us through the present darkness, is sadly neglected 
 by Christians; and we can easily infer to whose 
 influence this neglect is due. The effects of the 
 power of the deceptions that are in the world are 
 not by any means confined to unbelievers. All 
 human beings, so long as they are in "this present 
 evil world/' are to some extent under the influence 
 of that power. The spiritually-blind man does not, 
 upon conversion, receive clearness of vision, but is 
 in a perturbed state where he "sees men as trees 
 walking." The regenerated soul does not step out 
 of gross darkness directly into the full light of 
 truth. On the contrary, the path of the justified 
 man is rather "as the light of dawn, which shineth 
 more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov. 4:18, 
 R. v., marg.). Hence the general neglect by Chris- 
 tians of the "more sure word of prophecy." 
 
 Satan does not lose his interest in a man when 
 he is converted to God. On the contrary, it is 
 after the new nature is given that the conflict begins 
 (Eph. 6:12). Not that the regenerated man can 
 ever fall into Satan's hands again, for none of the 
 Good Shepherd's flock shall ever perish, nor shall 
 any be plucked out of His hand (John 10:28) ; but 
 the influence of the Christian upon unbelievers can 
 be destroyed or impaired. Hence it is the desire 
 of Satan to arrange compromises between the 
 believer and the world, and so to occupy the time 
 
The Way of Deliverance 89 
 
 of the former with the affairs of the latter that he 
 shall exert no influence for the saving of sinners, 
 and have no time for the study of the Word. Neg- 
 lect of the Bible, and particularly of prophecy, thus 
 directly serves Satan's purposes; whereas, all 
 Scripture is profitable, and is given by God to the 
 express end that the man of God should be 
 ''throughly furnished unto all good works" 
 (II Tim. 3:16, 17). 
 
 Thus it is that, through the influence of the 
 world upon all mankind, and particularly because 
 of the ascendancy which the world has been 
 steadily gaining in the nominal and professing 
 church, the light of prophecy is neglected, and the 
 above-quoted passage is treated as if it read, "we 
 have a very uncertain word of prophecy, to which 
 you do well to pay no attention whatever." 
 
 But God's people are waking up to the recogni- 
 tion of this neglect, and are beginning to realize 
 the importance of studying that part of the Word 
 which contains yet unfulfilled prophecy. This 
 awakening is, indeed, one of the many and 
 increasingly numerous signs which indicate the 
 near approach of that long-expected time of the 
 restitution of all things which God has spoken by 
 the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world 
 began (Acts 3:21). 
 
 We do not here enter upon the great range, 
 extent, and detail of "the more sure word of 
 prophecy." It is enough for our present purposes 
 
go The World and Its God 
 
 to say that from Scripture we may learn that the 
 joint enterprise of man and Devil will speedily 
 be brought to an end ; that the end will be destruc- 
 tion; that the debris of the world-system will be 
 swept off the stage and consumed in the fires of 
 judgment; that the powers of heaven shall be 
 shaken, and the inhabitants of earth be terribly 
 afraid; that the same Jesus who from the Mount 
 of Olives ascended into heaven shall so come again 
 in like manner as He went into heaven; that He 
 will banish all sorrow, pain, and fear, and will 
 bring in everlasting righteousness; that nations 
 shall come to His light, and kings to the bright- 
 ness of His rising; that the government shall be 
 upon His shoulder, and of the increase of His 
 government and peace there shall be no end; that 
 the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; 
 and that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
 the LORD as the waters cover the sea. 
 
 Such is the word of prophecy; and it is "sure," 
 because the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it, 
 who also is faithful and will bring it to pass. 
 
 In the power and light of His sure Word of 
 prophecy it is possible, nay, it is easy, to withdraw 
 Qur affection from the world and from the things 
 ihat are in the world. In that light we may view 
 ivith perfect tranquillity the disintegration of all 
 that is connected with this present visible order 
 of things ; for though "the world passeth away and 
 the lust thereof," nevertheless we, who believe the 
 
The Way of Deliverance 91 
 
 Word of God, "look for new heavens and a new 
 earth wherein dwelleth righteousness" (II Pet. 
 
 3:13). 
 
 In glancing backward over the subjects touched 
 upon in these pages the reader will observe that 
 the prominent and universal traits and tendencies 
 of human nature, and the most pronounced char- 
 acteristics of human society have been traced to, 
 and shown to be fully explained by, the record of 
 the third chapter of Genesis. Rather we may say 
 (inasmuch as Genesis has been aptly termed "the 
 seed-plot of the Bible") that the few words con- 
 tained in the first seven verses of that chapter are 
 the seeds whereof all true descriptions of the human 
 heart and' of human society are the ripened harvest. 
 Whence came words of such imimense reach and 
 compass that they give us, in this remote day, the 
 only satisfactory explanation of the origin of the 
 world-system? From whom could they have come 
 except from Him whose hand places in the tiny 
 seed the germ of the mighty tree ? 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT "EVOLUTION. 
 
 IN the foregoing chapters we have taken the 
 collapse of the Darwinian theory of the 
 origin of species as a starting point for a 
 fresh examination of the account of the fall of man 
 given in the third chapter of Genesis. We have 
 pointed out that the facts of human history and 
 human nature, which the Darwinian theory failed 
 utterly to explain, and in presence of which it 
 could not stand as a philosophical theory, are fully 
 and satisfactorily explained by the Genesis narra- 
 tive. 
 
 In pursuing further the inquiry into what gave 
 to the Darwinian hypothesis its ready and wide 
 acceptance among the learned, the writer has been 
 greatly impressed by the fact that there is un- 
 doubtedly a sphere within which the process of 
 evolution, as broadly stated by Herbert Spencer, 
 does operate. Certain conclusions follow from this 
 fact, which it is our present purpose to set forth. 
 
 The rise and spread of the doctrine of Evolution, 
 in the form given to it by Darwin, Huxley, and 
 Spencer, is one of the striking events of the last 
 half of the nineteenth century. As an explanation 
 of the process whereby every object and thing, 
 animate and inanimate, in all the visible universe 
 
The Truth About Evolution 93 
 
 came to be what it is, the doctrine of Evolution 
 received well-nigh universal acceptance among the 
 wise and learned of the earth. 
 
 It is true that here and there a voice was raised, 
 protesting that the sweeping generalizations of this 
 teaching were wholly unsupported by evidence ; but 
 those voices were drowned in the general chorus 
 with which the teaching was acclaimed. 
 
 It is likewise true that a few simple souls, un- 
 influenced even by scepticism displayed and taught 
 in the pulpit, clung to the narrative of creation 
 given in the first chapter of Genesis. But those 
 who refused to accept the new teaching were in 
 the main hopelessly "unscientific" and "behind the 
 times." 
 
 In that first chapter of Genesis, containing only 
 31 verses, the Author quietly states nine times over 
 (a three-fold emphasis multiplied by three) that 
 living creatures were commanded to reproduce each 
 ''after his kind." This remarkable but unobtrusive 
 iteration seems now like a challenge to the evolu- 
 tionist. It seems to indicate a prevision of a time to 
 come in the old age of the world when a doctrine 
 should be put forth, and should be accepted by all 
 whose faith was not firmly anchored in the accuracy 
 of Scripture, according to which doctrine every liv- 
 ing thing is a link in a long chain connecting it with 
 ancestry of another kind, and according to which 
 every living thing has the tendency to produce off- 
 spring of another kind than its own. 
 
94 The World and Its God 
 
 We say that the spread of this doctrine o£ 
 Evolution was a remarkable phenomenon, the 
 astonishing feature of it being that there has never 
 been produced in support of it so much as a single 
 instance of the reproduction by one living thing of 
 offspring of a different species ; and that there never 
 has been produced a single fact tending in the 
 slightest degree to prove that such a thing ever 
 happened anywhere in the universe. 
 
 In view of this state of the evidence, how is the 
 almost universal acceptance of Darwin's theory of 
 the Origin of Species, and particularly the theory of 
 the descent of man, to be accounted for ? Its wide 
 acceptance is unquestionably a fact, and hence is 
 susceptible of an explanation. 
 
 One reason for the rapid spread of the doctrine 
 undoubtedly is that it afforded a platform from 
 which the unbeUever could, in the name of Science, 
 contradict the Bible account of creation, and thus 
 discredit the Bible as a whole. Haeckel very aptly 
 termed Darwin's Origin of Species an "Anti- 
 Genesis," saying: "With a single stroke Darwin 
 has annihilated the dogma of creation." We know 
 in a general way how it has fared since that time 
 with Genesis. How has it fared with the "Anti- 
 Genesis" ? 
 
 The unregenerate man, whether a professing 
 Christian or not, is always seeking to justify his 
 unbelief. Hence the ready acceptance of Darwin's 
 theory. 
 
The Truth About Evolution 95 
 
 But there is a more profound reason than this for 
 the fact we are seeking to explain, and our present 
 object is to set forth this deeper reason. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 TWO METHODS OF WORLD-MAKING. 
 
 MAN has observed in the world and has 
 become acquainted with two distinct 
 methods of working. These two methods 
 proceed respectively from different spiritual 
 sources, and are radically different one from the 
 other. One is a method of evolution — that is, a 
 method of continual change from one set of condi- 
 tions to another, with increasing diversity and ram- 
 ifications. It is a method of mere experimentation 
 and repeated failure in the effort to work out some 
 far-off result, which is not clearly defined to con- 
 sciousness, and which constantly eludes pursuit. The 
 other is a method of creation, according to which 
 the plan and pattern of each thing is complete and 
 perfect from the beginning, admitting of no im- 
 provement or development. One method is that of a 
 mighty but imperfect spiritual being, who aims at 
 attaining, after a long succession of failures, some 
 ideal state or result, and who in that endeavor per- 
 severingly evolves one new expedient after another, 
 as successive failures materialize. The other method 
 is that of an Omnipotent and All-wise Being, who 
 works after the counsel of His own perfect will, 
 who has no need to experiment, and with whom 
 failure is impossible. One method is that pf 
 
Two Methods of World-Making 97 
 
 Satan; the other method is that of Jehovah-Elohim. 
 
 The universe was created by the Word of God. 
 ''By the word of the Lord were the heavens 
 made, and all the host of them by the breath of 
 His mouth" (Ps. 33 :6). The earth too was formed 
 by His Word, and filled with living things, vege- 
 table and animal, each of which was bidden to bring 
 forth "after his kind." Each of His creatures has 
 fulfilled this command ; and in all the earth there is 
 not an instance wherein a living thing has brought 
 forth seed which was not "after his kind." The 
 earth itself could not contain the figures which 
 would represent the acts of reproduction that have 
 taken place in it, but among them all there is not 
 known a single departure from this command. 
 This is the method of Creation — God's method ; and 
 all talk of differentiation, and integration, and pro- 
 gression from the homogeneous to the heterogene- 
 ous, of primal nebulosity and primordial protoplasm, 
 and all the rest of it^ has no more solid foundation 
 than Gulliver's Travels. 
 
 The method of evolution is found only in human 
 affairs and nowhere else \in the universe. This 
 method — namely, that of getting one's eyes opened 
 and becoming as gods, knowing good and evil, and 
 thus being able to discern and discriminate, to 
 choose and experiment and fail, and choose again — 
 was proposed by Its author to the first parents of 
 the human race, and was adopted by them. The 
 words are recorded for us: "Certainly ye shall 
 
98 The World and Its God 
 
 not die; for God doth know that in the day ye 
 eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and 
 ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Adam 
 thus committed the human race to the method of 
 evolution, and the affairs of humanity have pro- 
 ceeded according to that method ever since. 
 
 The mistake that the philosophers of materialism 
 have made is just this: Having traced out a law 
 or method of development or progress in all human 
 affairs and institutions, and being unilluminated 
 by the Word of truth, because they rejected it, 
 they have hastily and eagerly accepted the con- 
 clusion that evolution is a universal method. 
 Unbelieving theologians in turn (which our semi- 
 naries turn out by the hundreds), fearful of being 
 thought "unscientific" and "not abreast of modern 
 thought," have accepted evolution as God's method 
 of creation ; and thus the whole world has wondered 
 after the beast. And now the grim humor of the 
 situation is evident to those who have eyes to see 
 and wit to appreciate it, in that the doctrine of 
 evolution itself is becoming a mere phase in the 
 evolution of philosophy, and is taking its place in 
 the prodigious mass of junk and debris which 
 "Evolution" has left in its wake. "He that 
 sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall 
 have them in derision." 
 
 We may be sure that Satan desires that his 
 method should be well thought of, whatever he 
 
Two Methods of World-Making 99 
 
 may now — after these centuries of testing— think 
 of it himself; and doubtless he takes much satis- 
 faction in having imposed upon apostate Christen- 
 dom the belief that his method of evolution v^as 
 the Divine method of Creation. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NO EVOLUTION OUTSIDE HUMAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 THE matter under consideration is of 
 sufficient importance to justify a closer 
 examination of it. 
 Of the lack of any trace of the operation of 
 evolution outside of human affairs, but little need 
 be said. It has been frequently pointed out that if 
 evolution were a law of nature it would be in opera- 
 tion in our day, and the earth would be full of the 
 evidences of its working. But, so far from the ex- 
 istence of a single scrap of evidence for such a 
 law (outside of human affairs), the effort to cross 
 the line of species by artificial means has totally 
 failed. Even so stout an advocate of evolution as 
 Prof. Huxley was forced, before his death, to admit 
 that "The present state of knowledge furnishes us 
 with no link between the living and the not-living." 
 And Tyndall said : "Every attempt made in our day 
 to generate life independent of antecedent life has 
 utterly broken down." 
 
 Furthermore, if created things had come into 
 their present forms by a process of evolution from 
 primal nebulae and primordial protoplasm, the 
 crust of the earth would be full of, and the surface 
 of the earth would be strewn with, innumerable 
 intermediate forms filling the gaps between the 
 
No Evolution Outside Human Affairs loi 
 
 species, and showing historically the progress from 
 one species to another. Instead of this there has 
 not been found, in all these years of search, so much 
 as a single specimen of an intermediate form. 
 
 In Urquhart's The Bible: Its Structure and 
 Purpose,^ Vol. II, chap 3, entitled "Darwinism and 
 Genesis," there is given a very luminous descrip- 
 tion of the four fundamental assumptions of the 
 Darwinian theory, each one of which is essential to 
 its support. The author further shows very con- 
 clusively, and largely by reference to the published 
 conclusions of sceptical men of science, that each 
 one of these assumptions has utterly failed for lack 
 of support. Finally he presents unanswerable facts 
 and considerations which oppose the Darwinian 
 theory. We quote the concluding paragraphs : 
 
 "Much more might be added ; but the overthrow 
 d£ the foundations on which Darwinism is con- 
 fessedly built makes it impossible for this theory 
 to maintain its hold upon science. If any further 
 proof of its erroneousness were required, it would 
 be found in the story told by the fossils. If animals 
 had been evolved, we should have found the strata 
 occupied at first by animal remains of one form 
 only. Then by-and-by we should have seen these 
 diverge from each other by small variations. The 
 differences would then become more marked, until 
 perfectly distinct forms were reached. We certainly 
 
 ^Christian Alliance Pub. Co., 692 Eighth Avenue, New 
 York, N. Y. $1.25 per vol., $4.00 set of four vols. 
 
I02 The World and Its God 
 
 would not expect to encounter at the very outset 
 numerous forms which were entirely different, 
 which were fully developed, and which did not 
 afterward vary, but continued in every respect the 
 same age after age. We should not, I repeat, ex- 
 pect to discover this; for such radical distinction 
 of the forms and the absence of change in them 
 afterward would alike be fatal to the theory. But 
 this is what we do find. There are wide differ- 
 ences in the forms from the very first, and some of 
 the earliest continue to the present hour unchanged. 
 When new forms enter, their entrance has not been 
 preceded by variations of earlier life which lead us 
 to look for the coming of these. *The new forms,' 
 says the late Duke of Argyll,^ 'always appear sud- 
 denly' — from no known source — 'and generally, if of 
 a new type, exhibiting that type in great strength 
 as to numbers and in great perfection as regards 
 organization. The usual way of evading this 
 great difficulty in the facts of Geology is to plead 
 what is called the imperfection of the Record. But 
 this plea will not avail us here. There are some 
 tracks of time regarding which our records are as 
 complete as we could desire. In the Jurassic rocks 
 we have a continuous and undisturbed series of long 
 and tranquil deposits — containing a complete 
 record of all the new forms of life which were in- 
 
 ^Organic Evolution Cross-Examined, pp. 145-147, 
 
No Evolution Outside Human Affairs 103 
 
 troduced during these ages of oceanic life. And 
 those ages were, as a fact, long enough to see not 
 only a thick (1300 feet) mass of deposit, but the 
 first appearance of hundreds of new species. These 
 are all as definite and distinct from each other as 
 existing species. No less than 1850 new species 
 have been counted — all of them suddenly born — 
 all of them lasting only for a time, and all of them 
 in their turn superseded by still newer forms. 
 There is no sign of mixture, or of confusion, or of 
 infinitesimal or of indeterminate variations. These 
 "Medals of Creation" are all, each of them, struck 
 by a new die, which never failed to impress itself 
 on the plastic materials of this truly creative work. 
 There is nothing more instructive than to place a 
 series of these new species, such as the Ammonites, 
 side by side. The perfect regularity and beauty 
 of each new pattern of shell, and the fixity of it so 
 long as it lasted at all, are features as striking as 
 they are obvious.' 
 
 "In the face of such factSj it is astonishing that 
 Darwinism could ever have found acceptance. But, 
 after all, it is not more astonishing than many 
 another belief that has been the fashion or the idol 
 of an hour. Man's word changes and disappears. 
 *The Word of the Lord endureth for ever.' " 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EVOLUTION UNIVERSAL IN HUMAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 SO much for the proposition that no trace of 
 evolution is found outside of human 
 aifairs. We now turn to the other propo- 
 sition — namely, that evolution is the method of pro- 
 cedure which obtains in all human affairs. If this 
 proposition be as clear as the first, the two facts 
 viewed together present a very startling condition 
 of things, and one which wonderfully confirms the 
 truth and accuracy of the first seven verses of the 
 third chapter of Genesis. 
 
 The fact that evolution is the method which 
 obtains in human affairs, and has marked, by its 
 v/orkings, the history of the race everywhere and 
 in all time, is very easily shown- The exceptions, 
 which strikingly confirm the rule, are where God 
 Almighty intervenes and acts in human affairs 
 directly and according to His own method. There 
 is no evolution in the Bible, the Word of God, 
 which was "for ever settled in heaven," and which 
 remains unchanged and unchangeable. There is 
 no evolution in the miracles of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. There is no evolution when a man is re- 
 generated and becomes a new creature in Christ 
 (II Cor. 5:17). In all these instances the plan and 
 
Evolution Universal in Human Affairs 105 
 
 pattern of the creation is complete and perfect from 
 the beginning/ 
 
 A few illustrations of the operation of evolution 
 in human affairs will enable the reader to see for 
 himself its universality. 
 
 In society at large we find a broad illustration. 
 This is one of the illustrations employed by 
 Herbert Spencer. He says (First Principles, chap. 
 14, Sec. 3) : "In the social organism integrative 
 changes are clearly and abundantly exemplified." 
 And so they are; and it was upon clear and 
 abundant illustrations drawn from this fertile 
 source that his entire "law of evolution," with all 
 its pomposity and ponderosity, was founded. In- 
 fluenced by evidences from the realm where evolu- 
 tion does live and rule, author and readers alike 
 were easily persuaded to assign to it a like 
 existence and rule in realms where no trace of it 
 has ever been found. Spencer goes on to cite the 
 development of society through wandering families, 
 then tribes, then stronger tribes formed by the 
 conjunction or subjugation of weaker ones, until 
 the combinations, after being repeatedly formed 
 
 * It seems hardly necessary to remind the reader of the 
 difference between evolution and growth (which may 
 characterize a creature). Evolution is the development of 
 a thing or set of things into something else. Growth is 
 the development of an organism into itself; i.e. its 
 maturity; first the blade, then the ear, then the full com 
 in the ear. 
 
io6 The World and Its God 
 
 and broken up, become relatively permanent, and 
 ultimately evolve into states and nationalities. 
 That process, as the result of which, after many 
 changes, nations have been aggregated, is "evolu- 
 tion." In that process, as Mr. Spencer notes and 
 points out, there are three kinds of changes, which 
 proceed with practical regularity and continuity: 
 first, a change from a less coherent to a m'ore 
 coherent state; second, a change from a more 
 homogeneous to a less homogeneous state; and 
 third, a change from a less definite to a more 
 definite state. The presence of these character- 
 istic marks are ever3rwhere, and during all historic 
 times, manifested in human affairs ; and they hence 
 furnish very strong evidence of the existence of 
 an invisible presiding genius who, from generation 
 to generation, continues to direct the progress of 
 humanity. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NO EVOLUTION AMONG THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 THE absence of these marks in every other 
 part of the accessible universe also tends 
 to indicate that the sway of this invisible 
 presiding genius is strictly limited to the affairs 
 of men. It is a very striking fact that there is 
 no evolution In the affairs of other living creatures. 
 For example, and in m'arked contrast with the 
 evolution of human society, such animals as herd 
 together have developed no changes zvhatever in the 
 way the herds are formed. The birds build their 
 nests, and the affairs of the ant-colonies and bee- 
 hives are conducted precisely as they have always 
 been conducted since men began to observe them. 
 We need have no doubt at all as to our con- 
 clusions thus far. Evolution is an undeniable 
 fact in human affairs; and Ave can see that it 
 continues to operate in our day precisely as it has 
 operated in the past. Thus we have the impor- 
 tant fact that, in the sphere where evolution does 
 actually operate, it has continued to operate. By 
 this fact we have a sure answer to the question 
 which has puzzled evolutionists — namely, Why 
 does organic evolution no longer act In al- 
 tering the structures of plants and animals, 
 ■where no trace of its action Is now seen? 
 
io8 The World and Its God 
 
 If it ever did so act, surely it must have con- 
 tinued so to do. The answer is that evolution 
 never operated in those spheres, else it would be 
 operating there still; and that all things in those 
 spheres came into existence in some other way 
 than by the operation of the process of evolution. 
 Another inference which may be drawn at this 
 point is that the affairs of the human race have in 
 some way come under the sway of a ruler, or at 
 least of an impersonal law, who or which does not 
 exercise control over other orders of creation. 
 Those humbler orders of living beings perform per- 
 fectly, and without experiment or mistake, all the 
 operations needful for their existence and well- 
 being, and for the perpetuation of their species, 
 some of which operations are extremely complex 
 and require for their performance a high degree 
 of technical skill. Man alone blunders in every- 
 thing that he undertakes. And the difference is 
 just this, that man has departed from God's plan, 
 while the other created orders have not. 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 
 EFFECTS OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 BUT evolution is seen at work not merely 
 in forming social organizations as a whole, 
 but also in giving ever new and different 
 shapes to the sub-divisions of the social mass; as 
 if ever striving after an ideal and ever failing of 
 its realization. Thus, evolution is seen in operation 
 when we examine the history of all social sub- 
 classes, such as the industrial groups, the ecclesi- 
 astical, the military, the medical, the legal, the 
 artistic, tihe scientific, etc. 
 
 Take, for instance, in the industrial class, the 
 method of cultivating the ground. Not so many 
 centuries ago the rudest kind of an implement 
 served the purpose of ploughing the soil, while the 
 gathering of crops and threshing of grain were 
 carried on by hand in the most primitive fashion. 
 By successive and almost imperceptible stages 
 men have evolved classes of exceedingly complex 
 machines, whereby ploughing, seeding, reaping, 
 binding, threshing, etc., are performed automatically 
 and with a minimtim of human intervention and 
 oversight. In this ''evolution" each new member 
 of the long series has made its way by the destruc- 
 tion of what went before, a characteristic of evolu- 
 tion being that it leaves in its wake a constantly ac- 
 
no The World and Its God 
 
 cumulating mass of debris composed of obsolete 
 links in the series. 
 
 If we look along other industrial lines, such as 
 milling, locomotion, printing, paper-making, spin- 
 ning and weaving, communicating intelligence to 
 distant points, etc., eic, we see precisely the same 
 kinds of changes going on from incoherence and 
 homogeneity to coherence and heterogeneity, ac- 
 companied by the destruction of forms existing at 
 previous stages. 
 
 These illustrations from the industrial world are 
 mbst impressive, because, in that sphere, evolution 
 is most active at present; but wherever we look 
 in the realm of human affairs the evidences of 
 evolution are seen in the greatest abundance; 
 whereas the moment we pass the line of human 
 affairs we strain our eyes in vain for a scrap of 
 evidence to show that the process of evolution ever 
 had a foothold. 
 
 In the literary field, for example, we can readily 
 trace the literary activity of man from its simple 
 beginnings in oral recitation and manuscript copies 
 to the manifold present-day output of books, news- 
 papers, and periodicals in infinite variety. 
 
 Pictorial art has had a like development from 
 crude outline drawing to the many different forms 
 and methods of picture-making, culminating in the 
 moving pictures which are In vogue today. 
 
 Likewise In sciences, such as chemistry, and in 
 the practice of medicine, an evolution is constantly 
 
Effects of Evolution ill 
 
 going on, of precisely the same sort as exemplified 
 by the above illustrations, involving integration 
 and differentiation, and constantly erecting each 
 new set of conditions upon the ruins of the old. 
 
 Or, to look in quite another direction, we may 
 see in the man-made religions of the world the 
 same sort of development, from the simple begin- 
 ning made by Adam's eldest son, in presenting to 
 God the results of his own efforts and rejecting 
 God's way of salvation by vicarious sacrifice, to 
 the manifold and complex religious systems of the 
 present day, all of which are mere ramifications or 
 evolutions of the original principle adopted by 
 Cain — namely, that man can do something to save 
 himself, or to render himself acceptable to God. 
 The only religion which, in all man's history, has 
 not varied, is that based upon the atoning blood, 
 and which recognizes that man can do nothing for 
 himself, but is shut up to the grace of God ; for — 
 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent 
 sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness 
 that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; 
 and by it he being dead yet speaketh" (Heb. ii :4)' 
 
 The reader may push this investigation as far 
 as he likes, and will find everywhere in human 
 affairs, and nowhere else, the evidences of the 
 operation of the law of evolution from the moment 
 Adam and Eve applied their newly-acquired power 
 of discrimination and their thirst for progress to 
 
112 The World and Its God 
 
 the invention of aprons, down to the present 
 moment, without interruption. 
 
 In the sphere of human affairs the evidences of 
 this process are copious and even superabundant, 
 insomuch that a lifetime would not suffice to 
 examine them all. Outside that sphere they are 
 non-existent. Has this remarkable fact no lesson 
 for the unbelieving reader? Genesis 3:1-7 con- 
 tains an explanation of this fact. Can any other 
 be brought forward? We confidently answer. No. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ERROR OF THE EVOLUTIONIST. 
 
 IT is very interesting to note how Mr. Spencer 
 uses his data, and how he deftly applies to the 
 spheres of God's creation the illustrations 
 taken by him from human affairs. When he speaks 
 of evolution in human society, whether the develop- 
 ment of nations, or of industries, or of arts, or 
 fashions, or ecclesiastical systems, his facts are 
 drawn either from history or from matters of every- 
 day observation. Having verified his proposition 
 by apt and copious illustrations drawn from these 
 sources, the unwary reader is apt not to notice that, 
 when our philosopher goes beyond the sphere of 
 human affairs, he has not a single verified fact to 
 adduce — everything is either conjecture or as- 
 sumption. For example, he speaks of the Sidereal 
 System as having evolved from a nebulous state to 
 its present condition; of the evolution of the earth 
 from a mass of molten matter to its present con- 
 dition; of the evolution of living organisms from 
 primordial protoplasm to the present highly differ- 
 entiated organisms, including man. In all this 
 there is not one fact, not a scintilla of evidence, to 
 warrant the assumptions presented. On the con- 
 trary, and as shown in the first part of this article, 
 all these assumptions utterly fail of support; and 
 
114 The World and Its God 
 
 the evidence to the contrary puts them wholly out 
 of court. 
 
 Having arrived at Man, the character of the 
 illustrations given by Mr. Spencer changes at once 
 from fiction and fancy to undeniable fact, showing, 
 what we affirm to be the case, that up to the 
 appearance of man upon the earth, about six 
 thousand years ago (there is absolutely no evidence 
 for an earlier date) , evolution had no part at all in 
 fashioning the earth or the creatures in and upon 
 it; and neither since that time has evolution had 
 any part in fashioning the earth or its inhabitants ; 
 but, on the other hand, that in all which man has 
 set himself to do and accomplish in self-will, or in 
 accordance with the will of another, not that of 
 God Himself, evolution has been the invariable and 
 universal method of procedure. Evolution is un- 
 deniably the order of this present world wherein 
 evil is found (for evil, like evolution, is not found 
 outside of. man's world), and there is no escape 
 from it for sinful man except by death. Therefore 
 Christ "gave himself for our sins that he might 
 deliver us from this present evil world, according to 
 the will of God and our Father" (Gal. i :4). "That 
 throitgh death he might destroy him that had the 
 power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14). 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 DEGENERATION. 
 
 ONE common quality of all the products of 
 evolution, which serves to distinguish 
 them from all the products of creation, 
 is the instability of the former, and their tendency 
 to revert to their original condition, that is, to the 
 condition into which they were brought by creation. 
 This ineradicable tendency to progress backward 
 has been a sore trial to evolutionists. They had 
 to take note of a fact so patent and universal, and 
 room had, therefore, to be made in the evolutionary 
 scheme for "dissolution" and "reversion to type"; 
 and having thus provided sonorous names for these 
 phenomena, our philosophers had therewith to be 
 content. But has any evolutionist, or anyone else, 
 ever produced a single instance of reversion to type 
 in the spheres of cr cation f Again we have a very 
 striking confirmation of our main proposition. In 
 all the types as God created them there is neither 
 evolution nor reversion. The types neither ad- 
 vance nor recede. Reversion to type occurs only 
 where evolution has come in, and it proceeds just 
 so far as to obliterate man's treatment of God's 
 material. Having proceeded so far, it stops just 
 there. In a word, reversion, when not interfered 
 with, simply undoes what evolution has done. 
 
Il6 The World and Its God 
 
 It Is as if each type were held to its place by an 
 elastic cord. Man can pull it in various directions, 
 thus producing "varieties" of plants and animals; 
 but never can he stretch it far enough to cross the 
 line of species. "After his kind" is the inflexible 
 law of reproduction. And when man has relaxed 
 his pressure on the type, the elastic cord quickly 
 draws it back to its primal condition, and the 
 effect of man's operations is obliterated. This is 
 "reversion to type." 
 
 Hence all the speculation which pictures the 
 return of the cosmos to its conjectured gaseous 
 state, to begin evoluting all over again, is 
 the wildest kind of unfounded nonsense. To such 
 fancies as these do men — the wisest and best of them 
 — expose themselves, when they reject the Word 
 of God, with its simple, sufficient, and satisfactory 
 account of creation, and of the entrance of evil and 
 death upon a scene which God prepared for His 
 own glory in the happiness of His creatures. It is 
 a fearful thing not to receive a love of the truth. 
 All who are thus deluded, and who thus reject the 
 truth in order to follow their own vain imagina- 
 tions into realms where the natural man cannot pen- 
 etrate, are given over to a strong delusion that they 
 should believe the lie, "because they receive not the 
 love of the truth, that they might be saved" (II 
 Thess. 2:10, 11). 
 
 If it be true that evolution appertains solely to 
 the conduct of the affairs of man in his fallen state. 
 
Degeneration 117 
 
 that evolution is the plan of progress adopted by 
 man after his departure from God, we see what 
 an affront has been offered to the Creator, the Son 
 of God, by whom "were all things created that 
 are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and 
 invisible" (Col. 1:16), in attributing to Him the 
 method of His enemy. But such has been man's 
 way from the beginning. God put man in the 
 garden to dress and keep it, and to have dominion 
 over all creation; but man preferred Satan's plan 
 of becoming as God by the pursuit of Knowledge. 
 God offered men again the Prince of Life, but they 
 chose a murderer. This was the significance of 
 the choice presented by Pilate, and as the Apostle 
 Peter subsequently declared (Acts 3:14): **But 
 ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired 
 a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the 
 Prince of Life." They preferred the devil, and 
 "he was a murderer from the beginning" (John 
 8:44). God sent the True Light into the world, 
 and men preferred the prince of darkness. "And 
 this is the condemnation, that light is come into 
 the worldj and that men loved darkness rather than 
 light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). 
 God sent the truth in the person of His Son (John 
 1:17, 14:6, 18:37); but men preferred the devil, 
 who "abode not in the truth, because there is no 
 truth in him, ... for he is a liar and the father 
 of it" (John 8:44). 
 
 It is not strange, then, that when this pursuit 
 
ii8 The World and Its God 
 
 of Knowledge had finally reached its limit of folly 
 and madness, the works and workings of the devil 
 should be attributed to Him who was manifested 
 for the express purpose of destroying them. "For 
 this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that 
 He might destroy the works of the devil" 
 (I John 3:8). 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 WE find, then, that changes of the kind 
 which philosophers call "evolutionary" 
 are the invariable incident of all human in- 
 stitutions ; and on the other hand that evolutionary 
 changes occur nowhere else in the known universe. 
 It may be said that there is nothing which so pe- 
 culiarly characterizes human affairs, and so clearly 
 distinguishes them from all other parts of the uni- 
 verse, as the fact that the former are subject with- 
 out interruption to evolutionary changes, from 
 which all other parts of creation are exempt. 
 
 This is a fact of truly immense significance; 
 and what explanation can be given of a difference 
 so extraordinary and so profound ? What adequate 
 explanation can there be if we reject that which 
 the Scriptures supply — namely, that human affairs, 
 since the fall of the parents of the race, have not 
 been conducted according to God's plan and 
 method, but according to the plan and method of 
 another? Evolutionary changes began with man's 
 departure from the plan of God, and have 
 characterized all he has done in his state of 
 departure. They will cease when man's experiment 
 in self-development and self-will shall have been 
 brought to the end toward which it is hastening, 
 
I20 The World and Its God 
 
 and when God's will is done in earth as it is in 
 heaven. 
 
 We ask now an answer to our question : 
 Is the account which we read in the third of 
 Genesis true? If it were merely a matter of find- 
 ing an hypothesis capable of standing a while in 
 the niche from which the Darwinian theory has 
 been displaced, the question would not be worth the 
 asking. Neither is it a matter of much conse- 
 quence whether or not "the thought and culture of 
 the age" adopt a "theistic explanation" of the uni- 
 verse. To defend one theory or to attack another 
 is not an object to which the writer would wish 
 to give any thought or attention. These pages are 
 not written with the object of gaining the reader's 
 acceptance of a theory which may serve as a pro- 
 visional resting-place for his mental speculations; 
 but "these are written that ye may believe that Jesus 
 is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, 
 ye may have 
 
 Life through His Name." 
 
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