for himself.

Of course I have not time to recount the enemies of the church. Every
fact is an enemy of superstition. Every fact is a heretic. Every
demonstration is an infidel. Everything that ever happened testified
against the supernatural. I have only spoken of a few of the blows
that shattered the shield and shivered the lance of superstition. Here
is another one--the doctrine of Charles Darwin. This century will be
called Darwin's century, one of the greatest men who ever touched this
globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the
religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin there (on the one
hand) and the name of every theologian that ever lived there (on the
other hand), and from that name has come more light to the world than
from all those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the
survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has
removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox
Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that
the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin
of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature;
that the bible is a book written by ignorance--by the instigation of
fear! Think of the man who replied to him. Only a few years ago there
was no parson too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and
the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He
was held up to the ridicule, the scorn, and the contempt of the
Christian world, and yet when he died England was proud to put his dust
with that of her noblest and her grandest.

Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and the doctrine of
evolution is now an accepted fact. His light has broken in on some of
the early clergy, and the greatest man who today occupies the pulpit is
a believer in the evolution theory of Charles Darwin--and that is Henry
Ward Beecher--a man of more brains than the entire clergy of that
entire church put together. And yet we are told in this little creed
that orthodox religion is about to conquer the world. It will be
driven to the wilds of Africa. It must go to some savage country; it
has lost its hold upon civilization, and I tell you it is unfortunate
to have a religion that cannot be accepted by the intellect of a
nation. It is unfortunate to have a religion against which every good
and noble heart protests. Let us have a good one or non