's presence in the life gives one a sense
of responsibility to the Creator for every thought and word and deed.

Second, prayer rests upon a belief in God; communion with the Creator
in the expression of gratitude and in pleas for guidance powerfully
influences man.

Third, belief in a personal immortality rests upon faith in God; the
inward restraint that one finds in a faith that looks forward to a
future life with its rewards and punishments, makes outward restraint
less necessary. Man is weak enough in hours of temptation, even when he
is fortified by the conviction that this life is but a small arc of
an infinite circle; his power of resistance is greatly impaired if he
accepts the doctrine that conscious existence terminates with death.

Fourth, the spirit of brotherhood rests on a belief in God. We trace our
relationship to our fellowmen through the Creator, the Common Parent of
us all.

Fifth, belief in the Bible depends upon a belief in God. Jehovah comes
first; His word comes afterward. There can be no inspiration without a
Heavenly Father to inspire.

Sixth, belief in God is also necessary to a belief in Christ; the Son
could not have revealed the Father to man according to any atheistic
theory. And so with all other Christian doctrines: they rest upon a
belief in God.

If belief in God is necessary to the beliefs enumerated, then it follows
logically that anything that weakens belief in God weakens man, and, to
the extent that it impairs belief in God, reduces his power to measure
up to his opportunities and responsibilities. If there is at work in the
world to-day anything that tends to break this mainspring, it is the
duty of the moral, as well as the Christian, world to combat this
influence in every possible way.

I believe there is such a menace to fundamental morality. The hypothesis
to which the name of Darwin has been given--the hypothesis that links
man to the lower forms of life and makes him a lineal descendant of the
brute--is obscuring God and weakening all the virtues that rest upon the
religious tie between God and man. Passing over, for the present, all
other phases of evolution and considering only that part of the system
which robs man of the dignity conferred upon him by separate creation,
when God breathed into him the breath of life and he became the first
man, I venture to call attention to the demoralizing influence exerted
by this doctrine.

If we accept the Bible as true we