Third, in schools supported by taxation we should have a real neutrality wherever neutrality in religion is desired.  If the Bible cannot be defended in these schools it should not be attacked, either directly or under the guise of philosophy or science.  The neutrality which we now have is often but a sham; it carefully excludes the Christian religion but permits the use of the schoolrooms for the destruction of faith and for the teaching of materialistic doctrines.

It is not sufficient to say that some believers in Darwinism retain their belief in Christianity; some survive smallpox.  As we avoid smallpox because many die of it, so we should avoid Darwinism because it leads many astray.

If it is contended that an instructor has a right to teach anything he likes, I reply that the parents who pay the salary have a right to decide what shall be taught.  To continue the illustration used above, a person can expose himself to the smallpox if he desires to do so, but he has no right to communicate it to others.  So a man can believe anything he pleases but he has no right to teach it against the protest of his employers.

Acceptance of Darwin’s doctrine tends to destroy one’s belief in immortality as taught by the Bible.  If there has been no break in the line between man and the beasts—­no time when by the act of the Heavenly Father man became “a living Soul,” at what period in man’s development was he endowed with the hope of a future life?  And, if the brute theory leads to the abandonment of belief in a future life with its rewards and punishments, what stimulus to righteous living is offered in its place?

Darwinism leads to a denial of God.  Nietzsche carried Darwinism to its logical conclusion and it made him the most extreme of anti-Christians.  I had read extracts from his writings—­enough to acquaint me with his sweeping denial of God and of the Saviour—­but not enough to make me familiar with his philosophy.

As the war progressed I became more and more impressed with the conviction that the German propaganda rested upon a materialistic foundation.  I secured the writings of Nietzsche and found in them a defense, made in advance, of all the cruelties and atrocities practiced by the militarists of Germany.  Nietzsche tried to substitute the worship of the “Superman” for the worship of God.  He not only rejected the Creator, but he rejected all moral standards.  He praised war and eulogized hatred because it led to war.  He denounced sympathy and pity as attributes unworthy of man.  He believed that the teachings of Christ made degenerates and, logical to the end, he regarded Democracy as the refuge of weaklings.  He saw in man nothing but an animal and in that animal the highest virtue he recognized was “The Will to Power”—­a will which should know no let or hindrance, no restraint or limitation.