without thinking of Hugh Price Hughes, for it seems to me to express as nearly as anything can the spirit of his life.

I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus,

Trusting only thee;

Trusting thee for full salvation,
Great and free.

I am trusting thee for pardon,
At thy feet I bow;

For thy grace and tender mercy
Trusting now.

I am trusting thee for cleansing
In the crimson flood;

Trusting thee to make me holy
By thy blood.

I am trusting thee to guide me;
Thou alone shalt lead;

Every day and hour supplying
All my need.

I am trusting thee for power,

Thine can never fail;

Words which thou thyself shalt give me
Must prevail.

I am trusting thee, Lord Jesus,

Never let me fall;

I am trusting thee forever,

And for all.

There are many within English Methodism, and not within Methodism only, who are saying, "The Lord hath taken away our master from our head to-day." Will the gap ever be filled? There has been much discussion of the problem of finding a successor to Hugh Price Hughes in his manifold activities, but perhaps the wisest word is that of one who has admonished the unbelieving as he has written: "We will not libel Providence by saying we shall not look upon his like again. If God be Love, nothing is too good to be true."

Herbert W. Howwill

ART. II-EVOLUTION AND THE MIRACULOUS.

EVOLUTION is a word of great breadth of application, and is susceptible of widely diverse uses. No term is so frequently employed among scientific writers without clearness of definition, or precision of logical thought. It is called "the greatest discovery of modern science," "the profoundest generalization of the age," "the one universal law of the cosmos," "a discovery on par with the law of gravitation." It is a word to be conjured with in all scientific mysteries from the dawn of life down to the most abstruse psychic problems. In fact, it is used to explain both progress and degeneracy, advancement and retreat. Again, it is declared to be a manifestation of the law of continuity-a continuous on-flow of change, and the contradiction involved in such a conception of both continuity and evolution is not for a single instant apprehended. It is believed to be scientifically elucidated for us by the terms "development," "transmutation," "survival of the fittest," "cosmic processes," the law of "differentiation and integration," "specialization of types." Each of these terms is as sadly in need of exact definition as the term evolution, and when defined simply gives expression to an hypothesis and not a fact. Development, transmutation of the species, survival of the fittest, is simply the theory of evolution applied to the world of life. But evolution need not be an objectionable term when creative power, wisdom, and purpose are postulated back of the cosmos, and where divine interposition is admitted on the plane of the moral and spiritual. In fact, careful thinkers among pronounced evolutionists have discovered that there are certain axiomatic beliefs of the human intellect that must be reckoned with even in reasoning about evolution: Every effect must have a cause; things equal to the same thing are equal to each other; nothing can be evolved that was not first involved. These have discovered that no rational theory of the universe can dispose of the Creator. Back of thought

manifested at every step in the cosmos there must be a thinker. Teleology, design, end is not driven out. It is only raised to the nth power and placed back in star-dust. Divine interposition is not eliminated from the process, but comes in continually in minute specializations that were had in view from the first. We unhesitatingly say that no other view of the cosmos as it is is possible and man retain his axiomatic beliefs. If the process of divine creation is what is meant by evolution, we shall not quarrel with the term, for it is as good as any other to express a mystery. But we claim the right to examine the hypothetical stages of the evolution, and the implications continually derived therefrom in the interests of materialism. When certain hypotheses of evolution are made to discount the story of the special creation of man, his fall from pristine righteousness, and the story of the garden of Eden, and the divine supernatural manifestations in the development of the plan of human salvation, we propose to institute an inquiry into the facts or alleged facts upon which such hypotheses are based. We propose to insist upon the cogency of numerous other facts, geological, paleontological-facts that strew the pathway of human history. No mere theory of the evolution of the cosmos in the past can, in the name of consistent thought, be permitted to overslough the significance of facts ever present with us, such as the moral and religious aspirations of man, the facts of human history and the history of the great plan of human redemption from sin, and man's profound conviction ingrained into his being that sin ought not to be. Now let it be remembered that the story of the creation of man in the divine image and that of the garden of Eden are discounted by a theory of evolution and not by evolution. The first chapter of Genesis presents an evolution, in its salient points geologically accurate, but it is an evolution where God appears at each step in the "cosmic processes." By the way this is all the evolution the "cosmic processes" show. Anything more than this is made up of imagination, and the infinitesimal steps between

each of these great salient processes are simply hypothetical. Science nowhere sees the steps that mark the transition of one species into another. The transmutation bridges are all imaginary. Science sees types becoming more and more specialized in harmony with their environment, but it cannot fill the gaps with the veritable transitional types. Now let it be understood that Genesis has nothing to say pro or con about these transitional types. The hypothesis of infinitesimal variations does not lie against the story of Genesis until it is pressed into use to account for man. Genesis emphasizes man as a special creation, and any hypotheses that evolve him physically, intellectually, morally, and spiritually from the ape or the imaginary "Homo alalus" is squarely in antagonism with the word of God; and not only so, but involves evolution in metaphysical difficulties from which it can never extricate itself. He who attempts to evolve man's psychic nature, his axiomatic beliefs, his moral sense, his spiritual aspirations, his belief in immortality, from mere physical conditions and environments, by survival of the fittest, from a brute ancestry, has a task transcendently too large for the hypothesis of evolution. It is an easy matter to mislead by means of a scientific terminology. When, for example, a naturalist says, "Zoologically man is simply one genus in the old world family of apes," he is only calling attention to an arbitrary system of classification. This does not identify man genetically with any family of apes. Yet just this kind of classification has been made the basis of an argument for man's genetic development from this same "old world family" of apes or one belonging to the same genus. The process of the reconciliation of evolution with theism and religion has reached what might be properly styled the second stage; the stage where the evolutionist recognizes theism as a fundamental belief of humanity, and religion a fundamental fact, and that these must be accounted for by evolution. If this so-called law is to be all inclusive, it must include the great facts of human existence, axiomatic beliefs, conscience, and belief in immortality. These are as

much facts as the structure of a spirifer, or the gradual shortening of the prehensile apparatus of a family of apes. The evolutionist reconciler makes short work with the Bible story of creation and man's fall and the religious development set forth in revelation. This is at once dismissed as entirely mythical. In some instances it is conceded to be a beautiful myth, or series of myths that have parabolic truth underlying them, which must be interpreted in the light of evolution. It is, however, a long stride toward the truth since advocates of evolution have conceded the reality of spiritual things, and are willing to take a Creator into the account and consider an ordering intelligence back of a primordial fog-bank.

We are ready, therefore, to welcome any attempt to reconcile the theory or theories of evolution with the facts as they stand out on the pages of human history, the moral and religious nature of man, and the Bible revelation. So we take kindly to the efforts of the reconcilers who work at the problem from the evolutionist view-point, as it is an omen of good in the future, when the sweeping pretensions of the theory will find abatement in a better philosophy. Divine purpose back of star-dust will make manifest divine purpose at the great transitional epochs in the history of the universe, and after all the old argument from design will be recognized as only intensified, by enlarging the domain of what is called secondary causes. It is not only Paley's watch manufacturing watches by a subtle mechanism within, but these manufacturing improved watches, so that an endless progress in watchmaking is maintained. Is not design in the latter case transcendently more profound than in the former? Does it remove design to add immensely to the complexity of the machinery? If Paley's watch shows design, his watch manufacturing watches shows it more marvelously, and his watch manufacturing watches increasingly improved simply enlarges it immeasurably. But it is conceded that when in the process of evolution we come to man-not "Homo alalus," half-man and half-ape, but man with his faculties