DARWINISM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 17 July 1925, Page 5

DARWINISM

THE SCOPES TRIAL GROUNDS OF DEFENCE (By Electrio Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Sun Cable.) NEW YORK, July 15. Mi Malone, one of the counsel for defence in the Scopes case, in opening the defence said his purpose was to d!unv that the Bible was a work of religion, which must lie kept in the field of theology and not allowed to obtrude into the scientific field. We believe that. God is a spirit and those worshipping Hun must worship in spirit and in truth. The prosecution to succeed must prove Scopes’s theory was a denial of t'-he story of Divine creation of man as the Bible teaches, and instead taught that man descended from the lower animals. The defence proposed ten make it perfectly clear by the testimony of men learned in science and theology, that millions of people who believed m evolution and believe the Bible story of creation, found no conflict between these two.

Twice, during the trial the prosecutor had referred to man as descended from monkeys. That was not the view of the defence. No scientist of any prominence holds such a view. The most that science says to-day is that one order of men like mammals is capable of walking erect and using forefeet as hands. MR W. ,T. BRYAN In an article entitled W. ,7. Bryan at. Sixty-five in New York Outlook. Mr Dixon .Merritt writes: — After the disorder and the disgrace of all those weary days of ignoble strivings of factions, at the Democratic National Convention in New York last year, that, convention did a fine thing finely when it nominated Jdlm W. Davis for President. The spirits of those who would have to bear the bufdeu and the heat of the day through the campaign rose almost to normal. There was a rift in the clouds that augured a clear sky. The convention was near Its end. Nothing remained to be done except to clear away some odds and ends of resolutions and nominate a candidate for Vice-President. At midnight th» convention recessed for an hour. Delegates and others went out into the streets and stood about in groups, chatting light-heartedly. The gloom of the nights and days preceding was dissipated. I went alone into Madison square, sat on a bench, and smoked. Wihen I came back to Madison Square Garden at ten minutes to 1 in the morning, an old friend with whom I had been closely associated in Washington during the war was standing huddled against the south wall. He was sobbing. Supposing that he had received some, bad news from 'home. I put an arm about bis shoulders and asked him what was the matter. Wiping the tears from his face, he said, ‘I wish to God old Bryan would stay away and leave us alone just once in our lives.” He gave mo the first notice I had that William Jennings Bryan had forced Brother Charles on the party as the running mate of Davis. The' tragedy was consummated a few minutes later in another scene of disorder. The lift in tlie cloud had closed. Darkness had settled down permanently on the 'hopes of the Democracy. Bryan at sixty-five—no longer the boy orator of the Platte, but the chronic scold of the Suwanee—maintains hardly diminished powers as a “butterin.” If his neck is somewhat less stiff than once it was, his head is harder and iie uses it more indiscriminately. T hen his insistence was merely on ruling or wrecking his political party. Now he asserts his right to rule the church and the sdhool—and goes his full length toward runing them. Those who look lightly upon Bryan’s interference in religion and education are not wise. His “butting in” will not carry him to the goal. It never has. But it will enable him to muss things up mightily. It always has. At tilie time of the Democratic National Convention last summer William Allen While said to a little group at a luncheon table, “William Jennings Bry an, without thinking himself, has influenced the thinking of file American people more profoundly than any other man of this generation.” In tilie long run, Bryan influenced people to think the way he does not think. Liberalism in religion and education will gain b/y the trouble ho makes for it.