Some years ago, at Zephyrhills, Florida, a few of us volunteered to quarry rock to be used in the foundation of a Gospel Hall. This rock is popularly known as "coral limestone;" and though this place is near the geographic center of the State, the formation and fossils appeared to the writer's eye to be of exactly the same nature as that long formed and still forming about Key West, some two hundred miles to the south. In this judgment he was confirmed by what he read later from the pen of the distinguished Agassiz. This great naturalist emphatically rejected the evolutionary theory of Darwin.

In Agassiz's "Method of Study in Natural History" (pp. 189,190), referring to his observations on the coral reefs of Florida, he says:"When we remember that this (the outer reef) is but a small portion of the peninsula, and that, though we have no very accurate information as to the nature of its interior, yet the facts already ascertained in the northern extremity justify the inference that the whole peninsula is formed of successive concentric reefs, we must believe that hundreds of thousands of years have elapsed since its formation began. Leaving aside, however, all that part of its history which is not susceptible of positive demonstration, in the present state of our knowledge, I will limit my results to the evidence of facts already within our possession; and these give us, as the lowest possible estimate, a period of seventy thousand years for the formation of that part of the peninsula which extends south of Lake Okechobee* to the present outer reef. So much for the duration of the reefs themselves. *Lake Okechobee is in the southern part of Florida, bordering on the Everglades.*

"What, now, do they tell us of the permanence of the species by which they were formed ? In these seventy thousand years, has there been any change in the corals living in the Gulf of Mexico? I answer most emphatically, No! Astrseans, Porites, Maeandrinas, and Madrepores were represented by exactly the same species seventy thousand years ago as they are now. Were we to classify the Florida corals from the reefs of the interior " (which, remember, the distinguished scientist believed were formed some hundreds of thousands years ago)," the result would correspond exactly to a classification founded upon the living corals of the outer reef today." And to this he adds:" We have no evidence of any change in species, but, on the contrary, the strongest proof of the absolute permanence of those species whose past history we have been able to trace."

To this we add the testimony of Dr. Hill, who, in the time of the great Agassiz, was president of Harvard. In his "Geometry and Faith" (p. 70), he says, " The permanence of the species for so many years, demonstrates the accuracy with which its fecundity is proportioned to the slimness of its chance in the falsely galled struggle for life."

Where, in view of facts like these, is the finespun theory of Evolution, with its accompanying horrible doctrine of "the survival of the fittest?" For a theory it is, and nothing more-and this indeed is all that Darwin or any of his followers ever dared to claim for it. Proofs they have none.

Evolution has been defined as "The whole modern theory of the universe . . , which begins with the eternity of matter, proceeds with spontaneous development, and comes at last, without divine interference, to the state and condition of things now beheld by us." This makes of the material universe a kind of " perpetual motion " machine, merely- and what is commonly thought of men afflicted with the perpetual motion "bug" need not here be stated.

That there is any real proof for the doctrine of evolution none of its earliest and ablest champions ever had the hardihood to assert. Huxley says, " Of the causes which led to the origination of matter, it maybe said that we know absolutely nothing." And if they know "absolutely nothing"of the origin of matter, how can they possibly know anything of life ?It used to be a saying of Kant, '' Give me matter, and I will explain the formation of the world; but give me matter only, and I cannot explain the formation of a caterpillar."Huxley is compelled to confess that, "The chasm between the not-living and the living, the present state of knowledge cannot bridge" (Art. on Biol. in Encyc. Brit., p. i). And his companion-in-arms against the Bible doctrine of creation, Herbert Spencer, is forced to the same admission:"The proximate chemical principles, or chemical units," he says in his Biology, Vol. i, p. 182,-"Albumen, fibrin, gelatine or the hypothetical protein substance-cannot possess the property of forming the endlessly varied structures of animal forms."

And this, my reader, is what the evolutionist would give us in exchange for our certain, wholly rational, and surpassingly beautiful account of creation in the book of Genesis of our Bible, "God's word written."

How does the rash guess-work of the exponents of evolution compare with the certain knowledge and sober statement of facts of the Christian Agassiz, as expressed in the italicized portions of the excerpt given above from his report on the age of the Floridian corals ? And what does the great American naturalist's report prove ? Just this- and that is the whole point of the present paper- that all this talk today about the development of species-from professors' chairs, the teacher's desk, school text – books and magazine articles, the "science" page of the Sunday newspapers, and, alas, often the pulpits-is but crass speculation, and worse:for the age of corals of the reefs of Florida, both as fossil and living, prove beyond any doubt that the species have continued unchanged for the space of seventy thousand years, and probably hundreds of thousands more. And if these creatures of the sea, these tiny builders of islands, peninsulas, and perhaps of whole continents, have shown absolutely no change or development during such vast ages of time, what, we ask these confident "instructors of the foolish," these "teachers of babes," these would be correctors of the Bible, becomes of their theory of development, their fanciful and fantastic speculations concerning a mechanical, godless evolution of man from a mass of primeval slime, a bit of protoplasm, protozoon developing itself into a cell, and this in the course of ages evolving itself into a monkey, and that monkey eventually becoming a man ? !

It is an idle fancy, which not only remains tin-proven, but proved absolutely false by indisputable evidence. For if hundreds of thousands of years in the chain of life produce no change whatever in an insect or a worm, there would certainly be no change produced if they or any other species continued to exist and reproduce themselves in all the uncountable ages demanded by the disciples of the now discredited Darwin.

" IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED! "This we believe and here we stand. Just how far back in time this " beginning" would take us we are not concerned to know. The inspired expression leaves ample room for as many millions of years as the geologist, the astronomer, or the biologist may require-they may have as many as they will. That the earth was given its present form 'somewhere about six thousand years ago, according to scripture, we also believe. The intelligent Christian has read most, or all, of what creation-denying evolutionists have had to say, and he is not in the least moved thereby. He has read the other side, too, Dawson, Agassiz, Herschell, Humboldt, Cuvier, Buffon, Linnaeus, to say nothing of older ones, as Newton, Locke, Boyle and Bacon. They hold their own, and more, and with the same weapon, against such names as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Tyndal, Haeckel and Helmholtz. But our faith does not stand in the wisdom of men. We believe GOD, the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, the originator and upholder of the universe. We accept without question what He Himself has caused to be written, in that book we call the Bible, concerning the beginning of all things that exist, visible and invisible, organic and inorganic, known, unknown or yet to become known.

And when our children return from school with their books on zoology and innocently rehearse to us what their instructors have taught them in the classroom of the "origin of species," illustrated cleverly by photographs, say of the horse, in the various stages of his so-called development, we think of the apostle's words in 2 Cor. n:29, "Who is offended (stumbled), and I burn not?" or the dread warning of Him who is greater than apostle or scientist-aye! greater than all, "Whoso shall offend (stumble) one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! " (Matt. 18:6, 7).

But while our souls burn with indignation at such effrontery on the part of these teachers of youth, we can calmly and confidently refer our stumbled little ones to the Scripture of Truth, and correct the error sought to be instilled in their plastic minds by the enemy of mankind-and of Christ.

For this, after all, is what Satan has been aiming at in all this evolutionist propaganda. It is a covert, subtle stab at the Christ of the Bible. For if the doctrine of evolution be true, and man has come by descent from a primeval cell, the Man Christ Jesus, the God-man of the gospel, is but a myth, we have no divine Saviour, "our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins."And this is why the Christian must regard the teachers of evolution- whether Darwinian, or more modified ones, makes no difference in result-as enemies of the faith and the would-be robbers of all our heart holds dear, yea, that which is more precious to us than life itself, even the Christ "made of a woman," that " Holy Thing" that should be born of the virgin, and "called the Son of God"-who was here on earth "God manifest in the flesh," who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and who, on the cross, gave His life "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Reader, you cannot be an Evolutionist and a Christian at the same time. I solemnly tell you this-as one who must give account to God for every idle word his lips may speak or pen write; and as an " ambassador for Christ" I urge that you make choice here and now whether of the twain you shall accept-creation and Christ, or evolution with its denial of Him. Oh, choose Christ and with Him life-eternal life; eschew death eternal-living death! For, remember, it is written:"He that believeth not shall be condemned." Who said that? Look and see (Mark 16:16). C. Knapp.