ade a lengthy address,
in the major portion of which he brought forward entirely worthy
objections to Darwin's theories. Toward its close his feelings
overmastered him and he departed from his manuscript and unburdened
his mind. The lack of stenographers in those days and the tenseness
of the moment, which made everyone forget to take down what was said,
make it impossible to tell exactly what happened. It seems that Bishop
Wilberforce, appealing to the prejudices of his audience, said, in
language that now seems ludicrous but then was terribly bitter:
"However, any of us might be willing to consider ourselves descended
from an ape upon his father's side, no one would so demean his
mother's memory as to imagine that she could possibly have shared in
this descent." Huxley, who had waited patiently for the close of the
bishop's address, saw immediately the fatal mistake. Turning to his
companion beside him, he said, "The Lord has delivered the Philistine
into my hands," and, rising, he hurled back at the bishop the
indignant reply, "I should far rather owe my origin to an ape than I
would owe it to a man who would use great gifts to obscure the truth."
The bishop had made the mistake, and the struggle was on. Year by year
it raged. One by one the scientists, first of England, and then of
Germany, took their stand by Darwin. Huxley in England and Haeckel in
Germany were the foremost advocates of the Darwinian idea. Long and
fiercely the battle raged; slowly and gradually men began to see that,
instead of undermining religion, the idea of evolution uplifted
creation and made it not a strange happening in the distant past, but
a divine activity through all time. But the battle had by no means
subsided when one day came the sad news that Darwin's heart, so long
feeble, so serious a hindrance to his work, had beaten its last on
April 19, 1882.

His own people wished to bury Darwin quietly at his home in Down, but
Darwin now belonged to the nation. A petition signed by many public
men was sent to the Dean of Westminster, asking that his body might be
granted burial in the Abbey. Probably no greater honor can come to man
to-day, and fortunately Dean Bradbury was broad-minded enough to
acquiesce. So it came to pass that the church that had so long
believed him her enemy, that had first so bitterly fought him, came at
length to see that he added a new dignity and worth to her faith, and
took him to her bosom. Darwin's body lies b