Let us look the matter
quite fairly in the face. We accept the conclusion that (let us say) the
horse was developed and gradually perfected or advanced to his present
form and characteristics, by a number of stages, and that it took a very
long time to effect this result. Now, if there is anywhere a statement
in Holy Writ that (_a_) a horse was _per saltum_ called into existence
in a distinctive and complete form, by a special creative _fiat_, and
that (_b_) this happened not gradually, but in a limited and specified
moment of time, then I will at once admit that the record (assuming that
its meaning is not to be mistaken) is not provably right, if it is not
clearly wrong; and accept the consequences, momentous as they would be.
If, in the same way, the Record asserts that man, or at least man the
direct progenitor of the Semitic race,[1] was a distinct and special
creation, his bodily frame having some not completely explained
developmental connection with the animal creation, but his higher nature
being imparted as a special and unique creative endowment out of the
line of physical development altogether, then I shall accept the Record,
because the proved facts of science have nothing to say against it,
whatever Drs. Buchner, Vogt, Haeckel, and others may assert to the
contrary.
[Footnote 1: With whose history, as leading up to the advent of the
Saviour in the line of David, the Bible is mainly concerned.
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