In 1871 was published Charles Darwin’s famous book, The Descent of Man, which created a furore in the religious world.
It presented his speculations on the probable ancestry of man. He thought he could trace the descent of the human race back to an ape-like creature, and still further back until he reached the speck of protoplasm containing in itself, as he supposed, all those evolutionary potentialities which after centuries of slow advancement resulted in man. However, with strict honesty he pointed out that with all his research there was a missing link.
Till every link was indisputably proved and the missing one discovered, the theory remained a speculation. Alas! the human heart is predisposed to believe anything put forward against the Word of God, and Darwinism became the popular thing. Tens of thousands were swept into scepticism. Hundreds of preachers proclaimed this doctrine from their pulpits, doing incredible harm.
Whilst this theory did not deny God as Creator—for who created the speck of protoplasm?—yet it brushed aside the truth of man’s creation as set forth in Genesis 1 and 2. And if that account is mythical, what sure foundation have we for believing any statement in God’s Word? Darwinism also denied the fall of man, and if that is denied where is the necessity of the atoning work of Christ?
Years have rolled by since The Descent of Man appeared, and today Darwinism is an exploded theory in the estimation of many who are competent to judge.
In 1882 Darwin, the apostle of evolution, died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. We quote from the account given by The Gleaner. It is the account of a great and wonderful tragedy.
{The anecdote given below should be taken simply as that; it is disputed and does not have the required Scriptural "two or three witnesses".} Ed. STEM
Darwin is propped up in bed. From his window stretches a beautiful view. The sun is setting, lighting up with its soft radiance the face of nature. The dying man is reading—the Bible.
Lady Hope, a well-known Christian worker says: “I made some allusion to the strong opinions expressed by many persons on the history of the creation, its grandeur, and then their treatment of the earlier chapters of the Book of Genesis.
“He seemed greatly distressed, his fingers twitched nervously, and a look of agony came over his face as he said:
“‘I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.’”
True, his book appeared only eleven years before his death, but it contained the “unformed ideas” of his early manhood, as he himself confessed. Was there ever a more tragic scene? Darwin with Bible in hand, speaking with glowing enthusiasm about “the grandeur of this Book,” deploring the modern evolutionary movement in theology which resulted in covering Protestant lands with the blight of scepticism; imploring Lady Hope (he knew that she read the Bible in the villages) to “gather her servants, tenants and neighbours, and preach to them Christ Jesus”; confessing that his “unformed ideas” as a young man were the basis of evolutionary theology.
What a challenge to every modernist! What a rebuke to all who neglect the Bible!
And further, Darwin revealed his sense of the absolute necessity of the Lord Jesus to every man, woman, and child, when he begged Lady Hope to speak of Christ to those around her.
Right glad were we to read this account of Darwin’s closing hours. He exalted the Bible and Christ. He could not have done better, for the Bible contains the revelation of God in Christ, and presents Christ as the only and all-sufficient Saviour.