By a solemn act they
declared it "_falsa, impia, scandalosa_"; all persons possessing
copies of the work were ordered to surrender them at once to the
proper ecclesiastics, and the author was placed under the major
excommunication.
But all this opposition may be reckoned among the last expiring
convulsions of the old theologic theory. Even from the new Catholic
University at Washington has come an utterance in favour of the new
doctrine, and in other universities in the Old World and in the New
the doctrine of evolution by natural selection has asserted its
right to full and honest consideration. More than this, it is
clearly evident that the stronger men in the Church have, in these
latter days, not only relinquished the struggle against science in
this field, but have determined frankly and manfully to make an
alliance with it. In two very remarkable lectures given in 1892 at
the parish church of Rochdale, Wilson, Archdeacon of Manchester,
not only accepted Darwinism as true, but wrought it with great
argumentative power into a higher view of Christianity; and what
is of great significance, these sermons were published by the same
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge which only a few
years before had published the most bitter attacks against the
Darwinian theory.
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