EVANGELISTS. Properly, preachers of the "Evangel," or Gospel, of Christ; Eph. iv. 11. The term now is limited to the four writers of the Gospel. EVES, or VIGILS. The nights or evenings before certain Holy Days of the Church. A list of days which have vigils may be found in the beginning of the Prayer Book, in the table of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence, to be observed in the year. (See _Vigil_.) EVEN-SONG. Evening Prayer. The word occurs in the table of Proper Lessons at the commencement of the Prayer Book. (See _Morning Prayer_.) EVOLUTION. A name given to the theory of the origin of animal life, set forth by certain scientists. Thus they tell us that the account given us in Genesis of the Creation is certainly wrong. That man was not created as man, but that he has grown to be what he is through a series of stages. According to Professor Haeckel, the pedigree of man is as follows:--1. _Monera_--formless little lumps of mucus matter supposed to be originated by spontaneous generation. 2. _Amoebae_--a little piece of protoplasm enclosing a kernel. 3. _Synamoebae_--a collection of Amoebae. 4. _Planaeada_. 5. _Gastraeada_, or primaeval "stomach animals." 6. _Turbellaria_, or worms of a very simple kind. 7. _Scolecida_, worms of a higher class. 8. _Himatega_, or worms of a higher class still. 9. _Acrania_, or skull-less animals. 10. _Monorrhina_, or animals with one nostril. 11. _Selachii_, or primaeval fish. 12. _Dipneusta_, or mud-fish. 13. _Sozobranchia_, or gilled amphibians. 14. _Sozura_, or tailed amphibians. 15. _Protamnia_. 16. _Primary Mammals_. 17. _Pouched animals_. 18. _Prosimiae_, or semi-apes. 19. _Tailed Apes_. 20. _Man-like Apes_. 21. _Ape-like Men_. 22. _Men_. This may be all true, and yet Genesis need not be false. Genesis begins with man as man, and not with man as a Monera--supposing he ever was such. But when scientists speak of the principle of life as being the outcome of an act of spontaneous generation without any external creative power, then we must disagree with them. The principle of life is hidden with God alone, and must come from God. Nor does it in any way affect our belief in Almighty God, whether He was pleased to create man from the first in "His own image," or whether He was pleased to make him first pass through the preliminary stages Professor Haeckel enumerates! EXCOMMUNICATION. An ecclesiastical censure, whereby the person against whom it is pronounced is for the time cast out of the communion of the church. The first rubric in the Office for the Burial of the Dead prohibits the use of the Service for any that die excommunicate. EXHORTATION. The name given to the various addresses in the Liturgy. They are nearly all the production of the Reformers. The Burial Office is the only Service of the Prayer Book which has not one or more of these exhortations.