*The evolutionist from whose writings the following extracts are taken is Wm. P. Merrill, D.D., of New York.*

From the cross shines forth … in transparent glory the principle, found all through the life of the world,. .. that the world finds its salvation by the laying down of life, so that the very central principle of developing life is that very law of sacrifice, of daring, of willingness to risk, of the laying down of the life for the good of others, which is shown most clearly in the cross.

With this law of the sacrifice of the fittest-the mother giving herself for the life of her young, the father battling for food to maintain the brood, the wolf for the pack, and the pack for the wolf- is the operation of this law of the laying down of life-dim, shadowy, yet tremendously powerful ; without this, life would have been extinct before man came on the scene … And with the coming of man came the chance for the glorious and full outworking of this law, the definite subordination of the law of survival to the law of sacrifice. How wonderful and glorious is the operation of this law in human living. Every child comes into life through a mother's pangs, and grows through the sacrifice of its parents.

This which is found everywhere comes to fullest, most dramatic, most appealing manifestation in the cross of Christ. Just as in his living we have come to see the perfect life, not something apart from common human life, but the fulfilment of all noble living; so in his death we may and should see the perfect death, the setting forth once for all of this cosmic principle, this law on which God is always acting, this law on which God has built the world, this law of the sacrifice of the fittest.

How does the evolutionist find the cross of Christ possessed of saving power over the individual? To answer this he must define salvation. Is not this salvation, as the evolutionist defines it in its meaning for the individual experience – the realization by an individual of his highest capacities, the entering into the best and noblest possible living?

What really saves me, saves the individual, is not something which Jesus did 1900 years ago.. .what saves me is something God does now, something He is always doing…I am saved by the self-sacrifice of God now, mediated to me through parents and friends, through all who risk their lives that my life might be better.