The Meaning of EvolutionSchmucker, Samuel Christian
History
The Meaning of Evolution
Schmucker, Samuel Christian
Evolution
Perhaps the most severe shock that has come to the mind of religious
man from the teachings of science has been the at first almost
unsupportable idea that man is the descendant of creatures of which
the ape is to-day the nearest representative. He had learned from
Genesis the altogether adorable conception that he was made in the
image of his Maker. It lifted him; it strengthened him; it gave him
more power to struggle. He might know that he had marred that likeness
by wrong-doing, he might understand that the fullness of the glory of
God's image could not shine through his own face. Yet he believed that
he was, in spite of all his imperfections, made in the image of his
Maker. Now comes this horrible linkage with a miserable brute to
either shock and confound him or to degrade him. We can easily
imagine, some of us have bitterly experienced, the shock of this
changed conception. But it was only because we mistook the clothing
for the truth in both cases. We read science in its own terms; we read
Genesis in its own terms. They did not use the same language and they
jarred us to the very soul. Slowly, however, we are coming out of the
darkness of that battle; slowly the glorious light of the beautiful
truth is breaking into our minds and our hearts.
Michael Angelo painted a wonderful picture of "The Judgment." Here,
seated upon a throne, which after all is only a magnificent chair,
sits a venerable figure of what is really but a nobly-proportioned
man, to whom the nations come for their final reward. He separates the
righteous from those who must forever be sundered from their God. Seen
through the distant past it still remains a majestic picture; but no
painter would think of repeating its conception to-day.
Quite in the modern spirit is the beautiful lunette which John Sargent
placed in the Boston Library, above his well known frieze of "The
Prophets." It represents "Jehovah confounding the gods of the
nations." The naked figure of suppliant Israel stands before an altar
of unhewn stones, on which burns the sacrifice. The smoke ascends to
Heaven. On one side stands the mighty figure of Assyria with uplifted
mace ready to strike its awful blow upon the shoulders of helpless
Israel. On the other side the lithe, subtle form of Egypt, clasping
the knout, watches its chance to bring its treacherous thong upon the
helpless shoulders of suffering Israel. But Jehovah may not appear,
man may not look on God and live. Jehovah is seen as a glory behind
the cloud of smoke shrouded by winged cherubim. From one side of the
cloud comes a mighty hand meeting with power the force of Assyria.
From the other side, a lithe and sinewy hand thwarts the subtlety of
Egypt. But Jehovah is behind the cloud.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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