ng outgrown, and to adapt the plan of salvation to the false
standards of an artificial age that seems to be rapidly disintegrating
before the Church's very eyes. She now realizes that her Bible is more
accurate than the world's science, her simple gospel wiser than its
philosophy.
The hour has struck; a sublime opportunity is before her; for the God of
nature has Himself opened up before His Church the long-sealed chapters
in His larger book, and is now pointing out the marvellous agreement
between His book of nature and His written record. The strongest
message of the Church has often been heard amid the darkest ages of
apostasy. And the prophecies of the Bible have repeatedly pointed out a
special message that the Church is to bear to the world in that darkest
hour just before the breaking of eternal day,--a message that we now see
is wonderfully adapted to this age of evolutionism in science and
pantheism in philosophy. Looking down along the darkening vistas of the
coming years, the great Jehovah saw how a vastly increased knowledge of
His created works would be perverted into a burlesque of Creation, and
how this would result in a wide-spread apostasy in which His written
Word would be derided and scorned. Thus He timed a special reform for
His faithful people to give to the world just before the end, calling
upon the disbelievers in Creation then living to "worship him that made
heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters" (Rev. 14:
7). And so now, when the darkness of evolutionism and pantheism is most
dense, a light from above has illuminated the record in the book of
nature, the language of which is already more familiar to our modern
world than the language of the book so long distrusted and almost
derided. This message itself from the book of nature is full of the
essential ideas of the Gospel, faith in a Creator, who by His tireless
care for the particles composing our bodies keeps them in order, and by
healing our injuries and curing our diseases inspires us with faith in
Him as our Saviour and Redeemer. And in such an hour, in such a world
crisis, He has placed within the power of His Church these modern means
of travel and quick communication, in order to speed on this last work
of His Church so as to complete it in "this generation."
* * * * *
_WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
_The Fundamentals of Geology_
Cloth, 270 pages, Illustrated with engravings,
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