SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 130, 2 June 1923, Page 6

SCIENCE AND RELIGION.

By the narrow margin of one vote the anti-evolutionists lost a Bill in the Kentucky Legislature forbidding the teaching of evolution in State schools. This Bill was only the beginning of a general fight all along the line, and so fierce had the controversy become that forty distinguished American scientists clergymen, and publicists have issued a statement to the effect that in their opinion there is no antagonism between science and religion. Tlie campaign on the part of the anti-evolutionists has been led by Mr. XV. J. Bryan, who was a candidate for the Presidency in 1596, 1900. and IDOS, and who resigned from -Mr. Wilson's Cabinet in 1915 because he thought the President's Xote to Germany on tlie sinking of the Eusitania was unnecessarily severe. His persuasive eloquence in Minnesota inspired a large body of ministers to pass a resolution urging that "Christians throughout the State appeal to the Legislature to eliminate from all tax-supported schools this anti-scientific and anti-Scriptural theory of the origin of man nnd the universe." Mr. Bryan himself has described evolution as "hellish," while some of his followers have declared that this "heresy must be eradicated alonf with alcohol, tobacco, and low shirt waists.'' In Minnesota 115 ministers declared themselves in favour of forbidding the teaching of evolution, and 77 were favourable to its being taught. The Lutherans were amongst its foremost opponents, while the Episcopalians were its main champions. It is difficult for us to understand the strong feeling this controversy has aroused throughout the .States. " It is almost incredible that a modern Legislature should propose inflicting fines ranging from £100 to £200 on any persoti teaching evolution in a State school. A scientific theory is either true or untrue, and it can neither be destroyed by legislation nor saved by a permissive edict. It stands or falls by its correspondence with well-established facts. Religion is the revelation made by God to man, and this revelation is not confined to any written word, but is to be found in till the "works of God above, below, within us and around." Science has taught us that the world is not like the watch Paley imagined, but like the llowcrs of which Wordsworth wrote. It has shown the preparation of the world for life, the gradual unfolding and growth of man's spiritual nature, and an eternal purpose

which is ever progressing. If it has shown our garments to be still thick with prohistoric mud, it has also given us hope for the future, for we see mankind moving upward, and we do not know how more and more glorious tilings may yet be. It may be that some scientists have led us wrong by turning our attention backwards too niuch, or by taking as proved some things which are at present largely hypothesis. Others, again, have fallen into the mistnkc of confusing the letter and the spirit. It was one such who objected that Tennyson's lines, "Every moment dios a man, Every moment one is born," were not true, because iv that case the world's population would lie stationary. He suggested as an emendation, "and one and a sixteenth is born." Just so. If the Bible had been written in scientific language it would have lost much of its spiritual appeal. It will seem to many that both parties to the present controversy have dwelt too much on matters of literal interpretation. Like Xicodenms, they confuse the spiritual and physical birth of man. Belief in a spiritual religion means reliance solely on spiritual forces for the setting up of the kingdom of heaven. It does not mean reliance on legislatures or any penal system of fines and imprisonment designed to fetter the freedom of the human mind.