theological
authority asserted: "If the Darwinian theory is true, Genesis is a
lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and the
revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and
a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities as an observing
naturalist, declared the Darwinian view "a huge imposture from the
beginning."

Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most widespread
of American religious sects, declared that Darwin was "attempting to
befog and to pettifog the whole question"; another denounced Darwin's
views as "infidelity"; another, representing the American branch of
the Anglican Church, poured contempt over Darwin as "sophistical and
illogical," and then plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of
argument in the following words: "If this hypothesis be true, then is
the Bible an unbearable fiction;... then have Christians for nearly two
thousand years been duped by a monstrous lie.... Darwin requires us to
disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A leading journal
representing the same church took pains to show the evolution theory to
be as contrary to the explicit declarations of the New Testament as to
those of the Old, and said: "If we have all, men and monkeys, oysters
and eagles, developed from an original germ, then is St. Paul's grand
deliverance--'All flesh is not the same flesh; there is one kind of
flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of
birds'--untrue."

Another echo came from Australia, where Dr. Perry, Lord Bishop of
Melbourne, in a most bitter book on Science and the Bible, declared that
the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and Huxley is "to produce in
their readers a disbelief of the Bible."

Nor was the older branch of the Church to be left behind in this chorus.
Bayma, in the Catholic World, declared, "Mr. Darwin is, we have reason
to believe, the mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that infidel clique
whose well-known object is to do away with all idea of a God."

Worthy of especial note as showing the determination of the theological
side at that period was the foundation of sacro-scientific organizations
to combat the new ideas. First to be noted is the "Academia," planned by
Cardinal Wiseman. In a circular letter the cardinal, usually so moderate
and just, sounded an alarm and summed up by saying, "Now it is for the
Church, which alone possesses divine certainty and divine discernment,