EVOLUTION AND LIFE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16061, 16 October 1912, Page 13

EVOLUTION AND LIFE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir.—You have closed the correspondence between Mr Ho are and Mr Js'olan, but perhaps you will allow an onlooker at the fray to make a few remarks. It seems to me that both writers are right and wrong, simply because they are disputing over two sides of the same shield. All that Mr Nolan says about tho splendid men his Church has produced is absolutely true ; also, the grand work die has done all down through the ages must not—indeed cannot—be ignored by rightthinking people, anxious to acknowledge truth and justice in matters of history. Our eternal gratitude is duo to tho Church from her earliest days for her noble army of martyrs, her sublime saints, her eonservers of light and learning; her teachers, her protectors of the poor and the wronged. Yes; and for her vast concourse of humble workers in convents, in slums, in the wild places of the earth, men and women of the Roman Catholic Church who leave the world better though they some day lie in forgotten and unvisited graves. But what of the other side of the shield? All the Christian Churches have feared and opposed science. Only to-day are they beginning to recognise the folly and wickedness of denying facts and truths shown them by the finger of science. Mr Hoare's letter is a dignified, outspoken statement that no student of history can dare to deny. But the Church has not been alono in her sins against truth; all the learned professions—that of science.' too—have been conservative and prejudiced. The scientists of olden time were often the victims and martyrs of their own class and profession. "The profession was ever suspicious and unfriendly and jealoiis of new thoughts and discoveries. It was the spirit of the ago during th-e early and medircval periods to bo narrow and rigid. The spirit of the age in changing, slowly, I- grant you—it is but three, years since the murder of Ferrer—but surely w-e are learning to reverence facts, to face them, and to readjust ourselves to their significance and implications. Whj' will some good folk always rail against the churches; one does get so tired of it. If she has done wrong and foolish things, as we all know she has, is it not time to forgive and forget and to try to broaden her outlook and- soften he'- animosities? May I finish with tlie following quotation from the Persian reformer of today, Babe? "Do not antagonise or denounce any religion. God is to every human being as great as the individual's mental capacity permits one to f-:ee Him." Again: "The religion of the future must be a unitivo and not a separative force." Again: "0 people of the world! the creed of God is. love and union. Malro it not to be a cau<--e of discord and dissension. I call yen to the service of the nations and to the pacification of the world." And again:—"O -people of the world! the pavilion of unity i 9 raised. Do net gaze upon each other with the eyes of foreigners. TW are all the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch. —I am., etc., E. W. CUNNTNGTON. (We had closed the whole of the correspondence, not merely the controversy between Mr IToe.ro and Mr Nolan; but we cannot deny Mvr Cimningtoii the woman's privilege Her letter, however, must bo the last word for the present.— V A " T..T.)