eckel says, "All the different forms of organisms which
people are usually inclined to look upon as the products of creative
power acting for a definite purpose, we, according to the theory of
selection, can conceive as the necessary productions of natural
selection, working without a purpose."--_History of Creation, Vol. 1,
pp. 176-327._ He says, "We have before this become acquainted with the
simplest of all species of organisms in the _monera_, whose entire
bodies when completely developed consist of nothing but a semi-fluid
albuminous lump; they are organisms which are of the utmost importance
for the theory of the first origin of life."--_History of Creation, Vol.
1, p. 330._

Here we part with our friends of the Haeckel school. They maintain that
there was life without antecedent life, and so get more out of dead
atoms than was in them, which is equal to something made of nothing. Mr.
Darwin, being apprised of this difficulty, claimed a miraculous origin
for the first form, or forms, of life, but retired the Creator at once
upon the great achievement, leaving all to be evolved from these first
forms by and through natural agencies, denying even design in nature.
Mr. Buckner, a bold advocate of the "spontaneous generation" of life,
who has published two volumes on Darwinism, says Darwin's views "are the
most thoroughly naturalistic that can be imagined, and far more
atheistic than those of his predecessor, Lamark, who admitted, at least,
a general law of progress and development; whereas, according to Darwin,
the whole development is due to the gradual summation of innumerable
minute and accidental operations." It is admitted that the doctrine of
evolution of species from other and entirely different species is a mere
hypothesis, an opinion, _or guess_.

What have we to gain by the adoption of this unknown factor in the
vegetable and animal _kingdoms_? Answer, nothing but _irreligion_; a
world of godless infidels tearing afresh the wounds that death has
made, and restoring to the grave its victory over the human heart.
Renan, in his recent lectures talks about the "torture consequent upon
the disappointment in his efforts to attain to the unattainable;" and
Strauss said the "sense of abandonment is at first something awful."
This is the inheritance that the tenet of evolution leaves to all
infidels in their last extremity.

WHEN SHOULD CHILDREN BECOME CHURCH MEMBERS?

We have looked with great anxiety u