Do you defend Jehovah and Abraham because the ignorant wretches in the "land of Moriah," knowing nothing of the true God, cut the throats of their babes "as an act of religion"?
Was Jehovah led away by the example of the Gods of Moriah? Do you not see that your excuses are simply the suggestions of other crimes?
You see clearly that the Hindoo mother, when she throws her babe into the Ganges at the command of her God, "sins against first principles"; but you excuse Abraham because he lived in the childhood of the race. Can Jehovah be excused because of his youth? Not satisfied with your explanation, your defences and excuses, you take the ground that when Abraham said: "My son, God will provide a lamb for a burnt offering," he may have "believed implicitly that a way of rescue would be found for his son." In other words, that Abraham did not believe that he would be required to shed the blood of Isaac. So that, after all, the faith of Abraham consisted in "believing implicitly" that Jehovah was not in earnest.
You have discovered a way by which, as you think, the neck of orthodoxy can escape the noose of Darwin, and in that connection you use this remarkable language:
"I should reply that the moral history of man, in its principal stream, has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." It is hard to see how this statement agrees with the one in the beginning of your Remarks, in which you speak of the human constitution in its "warped, impaired and dislocated" condition. When you wrote that line you were certainly a theologian—a believer in the Episcopal creed—and your mind, by mere force of habit, was at that moment contemplating man as he is supposed to have been created—perfect in every part. At that time you were endeavoring to account for the unbelief now in the world, and you did this by stating that the human constitution is "warped, impaired and dislocated"; but the moment you are brought face to face with the great truths uttered by Darwin, you admit "that the moral history of man has been distinctly an evolution from the first until now." Is not this a fountain that brings forth sweet and bitter waters?
I insist, that the discoveries of Darwin do away absolutely with the inspiration of the Scriptures—with the account of creation in Genesis, and demonstrate not simply the falsity, not simply the wickedness, but the foolishness of the "sacred volume." There is nothing in Darwin to show that all has been evolved from "primal night and from chaos." There is no evidence of "primal night." There is no proof of universal chaos. Did your Jehovah spend an eternity in "primal night," with no companion but chaos.
It makes no difference how long a lower form may require to reach a higher. It makes no difference whether forms can be simply modified or absolutely changed. These facts have not the slightest tendency to throw the slightest light on the beginning or on the destiny of things.
I most cheerfully admit that gods have the right to create swiftly or slowly. The reptile may become a bird in one day, or in a thousand billion years—this fact has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of a first cause, but it has something to do with the truth of the Bible, and with the existence of a personal God of infinite power and wisdom.
Does not a gradual improvement in the thing created show a corresponding improvement in the creator? The church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the church says that the Mosaic account is true, because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?
To me it is somewhat difficult to understand the mental processes of one who really feels that "the gap between man and the inferior animals or their relationship was stated, perhaps, even more emphatically by Bishop Butler than by Darwin."