[288]
The first blow at the fully developed doctrine of "the Fall"
came, as we have seen, from geology. According to that doctrine,
as held quite generally from its beginnings among the fathers
and doctors of the primitive Church down to its culmination in
the minds of great Protestants like John Wesley, the statement
in our sacred books that "death entered the world by sin" was
taken as a historic fact, necessitating the conclusion that,
before the serpent persuaded Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit,
death on our planet was unknown. Naturally, when geology
revealed, in the strata of a period long before the coming of
man on earth, a vast multitude of carnivorous tribes fitted to
destroy their fellow-creatures on land and sea, and within the
fossilized skeletons of many of these the partially digested
remains of animals, this doctrine was too heavy to be carried,
and it was quietly dropped.
But about the middle of the nineteenth century the doctrine of
the rise of man as opposed to the doctrine of his "fall"
received a great accession of strength from a source most
unexpected.
Pages:
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538