refrain from
speaking our piece; we are advocates of free thought and free speech.

It must be conceded that there was a time when life and organisms began
to exist upon our planet. From whence did they come, and how? The
"high-priest" of Germany, who claims to be entitled to a hearing, says,
by "spontaneous generation" they first appeared in the "monera." His
words are these, "Only such homogeneous organizations as are yet not
differentiated and are similar to the inorganic crystals in being
homogeneously composed of one single substance, could arise by
spontaneous generation, and could become the primeval parents of all
other organisms." Such is Haeckel's germ of life.

Did it always exist? Is a moneron an eternal life germ? No. Neither
Haeckel or Darwin advocates such a foolish idea; nor yet the idea of
life-germs always existing. Life-germs are material organisms, and they
may be alive or dead; for we know there is no period in the history of a
living organism when it is not liable to die.

Spontaneous generation does not correlate with the idea that "life-germs
always existed." And it is also opposed to the Christian idea that all
life is from God, the eternal, ever-living spirit. So we Christians say,
there is no life without antecedent life. If men prefer to deify
life-germs, of course that is their business, but we have no disposition
to accept a distinction without a difference, excepting the sacrifice of
our common sense. It is more rational to believe in an ever-living
intelligence as the source of all life, intelligence and moral nature.
Did an eternal life-germ evolve all the forms of organic life known upon
our earth? The eternal life-germ idea of materialistic philosophy
represents no evolutionists of any note whatever. I know of one
gentlemen only, at the present writing, that it represents. Haeckel
says, We can, therefore, from these general outlines of the inorganic
history of the earth's crust deduce the important fact, that at a
certain definite time life had its beginning on our earth, and that
terrestrial organisms did not exist from eternity, but at a certain
period came into existence for the first time.

The _godless advocates_ of spontaneous generation thus allow that life
in its first appearance was without antecedent life; and so more was
produced by the blind forces than was in nature to be evolved. Tell me
how that was done, and I will tell you how to create something out of
nothing. Ha