“... ’strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield,’

“cherishing the good that falls in our way and bearing the evil in and around us, with stout heart set on diminishing it.  So far we all may strive in one faith toward one hope: 

“’It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.

“... but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note may yet be done.’”

We must be strong and of a very good courage.  While the avoidance of pain and discomfort, or even happiness, cannot be the proper end of life, it is not a world of misery or an essentially and hopelessly evil world.  There is plenty of misery in the world, and we cannot deny it.  Neither can we deny that God has put us in the world to relieve misery, and that until we have made every effort and strained every nerve as we have never yet done, we, and not God, are largely responsible for it.  But behind misery stand selfishness and sin as its cause.  And here we must not parley but fight.  And the hosts of evil are organized and mighty.  “The sons of this world are for their own generation wiser than the sons of light.”  And we shall never overcome them by adopting their means.  But we can and shall surely overcome.  For he that is with us is more than they that be with them.  “The skirmishes are frequently disastrous to us, but the great battles all go one way.”  And we long for the glory of “him that overcometh.”  But the victor’s song can come only after the battle, and be sung only by those who have overcome.  And we would not have it otherwise if we could.  The closing words of Dr. Hitchcock’s last sermon are the following: 

“It is one of the revelations of scripture that we are to judge the angels, sitting above them on the shining heights.  It may well be so.  Those angels are the imperial guard, doing easy duty at home.  We are the tenth legion, marching in from the swamps and forests of the far-off frontier, scarred and battered, but victorious over death and sin.”

CHAPTER X

PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

In all our study we have taken for granted the truth of the theory of evolution.  If you are not already persuaded of this by the writings of Darwin, Wallace, and many others, no words or arguments of mine would convince you.  We have used as the foundation of our argument only the fundamental propositions of Mr. Darwin’s theory.

But while all evolutionists accept these propositions they differ more or less in the weight or efficiency which they assign to each.  In a sum in multiplication you may gain the same product by using different factors; but if the product is to be constant, if you halve one factor, you must double another.  Evolution is a product of many factors.  One evolutionist lays more, another less, emphasis on natural selection, according as he assigns less or more efficiency to other forces or processes.  Furthermore, evolutionists differ widely in questions of detail, and some of these subsidiary questions are of great practical importance and interest.  It may be useful, therefore, to review these propositions in the light of the facts which we have gathered, and to see how they are interpreted, and what emphasis is laid on each by different thinkers.