Reaction against the theology of past days comes to many who have been surrounded in youth by church people entirely satisfied that the truth and faith indispensable to future happiness were derived only through strictest Calvinistic creeds.  The thoughtful youth is naturally carried along and disposed to concur in this.  He cannot but think, up to a certain period of development, that what is believed by the best and the highest educated around him—­those to whom he looks for example and instruction—­must be true.  He resists doubt as inspired by the Evil One seeking his soul, and sure to get it unless faith comes to the rescue.  Unfortunately he soon finds that faith is not exactly at his beck and call.  Original sin he thinks must be at the root of this inability to see as he wishes to see, to believe as he wishes to believe.  It seems clear to him that already he is little better than one of the lost.  Of the elect he surely cannot be, for these must be ministers, elders, and strictly orthodox men.

The young man is soon in chronic rebellion, trying to assume godliness with the others, acquiescing outwardly in the creed and all its teachings, and yet at heart totally unable to reconcile his outward accordance with his inward doubt.  If there be intellect and virtue in the man but one result is possible; that is, Carlyle’s position after his terrible struggle when after weeks of torment he came forth:  “If it be incredible, in God’s name, then, let it be discredited.”  With that the load of doubt and fear fell from him forever.

When I, along with three or four of my boon companions, was in this stage of doubt about theology, including the supernatural element, and indeed the whole scheme of salvation through vicarious atonement and all the fabric built upon it, I came fortunately upon Darwin’s and Spencer’s works “The Data of Ethics,” “First Principles,” “Social Statics,” “The Descent of Man.”  Reaching the pages which explain how man has absorbed such mental foods as were favorable to him, retaining what was salutary, rejecting what was deleterious, I remember that light came as in a flood and all was clear.  Not only had I got rid of theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution.  “All is well since all grows better” became my motto, my true source of comfort.  Man was not created with an instinct for his own degradation, but from the lower he had risen to the higher forms.  Nor is there any conceivable end to his march to perfection.  His face is turned to the light; he stands in the sun and looks upward.

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right.  If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather