Adaptation in organisms instead of having been produced by a Deity, we hold is largely the result of natural selection. Adaptation must exist as the adjustment of objects to their environments. If a flock of sheep be exposed to the weather of a severe climate, those of them having the thinnest wool, affording the least protection from the cold, will perish. Those with the thickest wool and hardiest nature will survive every year, and by the law of heredity, transmit their favorable variations. By this process those best adapted to the climate live, and the others perish. Thus in the struggle for life we have the "survival of the fittest," without any design whatever. But the theologian comes along and looking at the sheep, says: "See how God has adapted these sheep to the climate." He forgets the thousands that have shivered and perished in winter's cold as the condition of this adaptation. So animals change the color of their coverings in accordance with their environments. The bears among the icebergs of the North are white, because in the struggle for life every light variation has been favorable to the animal--has facilitated its escape from the hunter and its preying upon the living things upon which it subsists. Those with darker coverings have gradually become extinct, leaving in undisputed possession of the snow banks and icebergs this species, which in color resembles the general aspect of its surroundings. Look at the rabbits. Some change their color every year; some are brown in the summer and white like the snow in winter. Those with this tendency to change their color during the year, having the most favorable variation, have persisted, and this tendency, by heredity, has been accumulated, until it has become a part of the nature of the animal. These are but illustrations of a principle discovered by Darwin and Wallace, which explains largely how, not only color and thickness of coverings, but speed, strength and suppleness of body, keenness of sight and hearing, and all other parts and powers of organism have been developed in adaptation to their environment, without any special design whatever. It is said we have no evidence of the eternal existence of the universe, because we have no personal observation of it. But is there any personal observation to prove the existence of an eternal God? Yet it is believed in by our opponents. We believe the universe always has existed in the past, because we see no trace of a beginning; we believe it will always exist in the future, because we see no prospect or possibility of an end. Worlds have their formation and dissolution; but the substance is neither augmented nor diminished. Matter is indestructible and eternal. We are not, therefore, in need of a creator. B. F. Underwood.