The Missing Link - has it been found?

Of course attention was fixed mostly on the skull. Was it the missing link? Professor Schaffhausen said it had a cubic capacity of 1033. Professor Huxley corrected this and gave the cubic capacity of 1230, the cranial capacity of the modern school teacher. Remember, the highest cubic capacity of the ape does not exceed 600 cc. Where then is the missing link in this?

But if man were descended from protoplasm then the Bible story of the creation of man must be disbelieved. And if the first chapter in the Bible indulged in such a fairy tale, where was the credibility of the rest of the Book? Gone! Nay more, Luke tells us that our Lord was descended from Adam, and Paul tells us “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” So that both Luke and Paul were wrong if Darwin is right. Just as a bridge depends for its stability on every stone in the arch, so if Darwins theory were true, in logical sequence the whole structure of Christianity would collapse; the inspiration of the Scriptures, the truth as to the person and work of Christ, and the very character of God would be undermined. Years have rolled by. The Darwinian theory has been given up as untenable in the highest scientific quarters. But meantime, it has wrought frightful and irreparable havoc. The missing link has indeed been proved to be an impassable abyss. God and His Word have again been triumphant, as they must ever be.

1892 127 I do not touch upon the grave question whether Darwinism is compatible with a belief in the Bible as the word of God, although having a strong judgment that it is not, but on the contrary that it is foolish and profane. But for my present purpose it is only necessary to show that the system is illogical, and for the following reason. It is not proven. Accordingly it seems to me that it will be time enough to accept the evolution hypothesis of the origin of mankind when those "missing links" are discovered which will raise it to the dignity of a demonstrable system. Meantime it is but a house of cards with no securer buttresses than "ifs" and "must have beens" and such phrases as "it is easily conceived," "we may in that case conclude." Those, it is true, who have the slightest reverence for the word of God, and appreciation of divine principles, of course know that the system will remain hypothetical. But my contention is that, putting aside revelation, fitness of things, etc., it is absurd to settle down in calm acceptance of a mere theory which its fondest votaries dare not claim to have established. It is to be noted also that even Prof. Huxley has carefully guarded against committing himself absolutely to the Darwinian hypothesis. But when we bear in mind the notorious fact that these so-called scientific men reject Christianity in toto (i.e. as a revelation), and that some (I grant not all) have gone so far as to say "we have no need of the hypothesis of God," one need not hesitate before rejecting their theories.

It presented his speculations on the probable ancestry of man. He thought he could trace the descent of the human race back to an ape-like creature, and still further back until he reached the speck of protoplasm containing in itself, as he supposed, all those evolutionary potentialities which after centuries of slow advancement resulted in man. However, with strict honesty he pointed out that with all his research there was a missing link.

Ten concluded they were the remains of an ape. Seven concluded they were the remains of a man. Seven concluded they were the remains of the missing link.

How much reliable opinion can be formed on such divergence, when seventeen out of twenty-four scientists refused the “missing link” opinion, we leave the reader to judge.

Yet there are other scientific men, such as Wallace, and, I doubt not, Dawson, who contend that man's body cannot be the product of evolution. You, I understand, think that God may have breathed His spirit into some anthropoid ape! On an unproven hypothesis; on the soundness of a theory that has missing links, (and remember that while no chain is stronger than its weakest link, in this case some of the links are actually non-existent!), a theory concocted by men, who reject as antiquated myths those high verities of the incarnation and the atonement, which presuppose the fall and which alone make for our peace, and without the consolation of which you confess the fairest lot here were but chaos. Nay, nay, Christ is the Truth, and all else is vain dreaming.

And after such concessions as these have been made, we are somewhat astounded to read farther on — "it is certain that the materials for his (man's) body have been brought together from an unknown multitude of lowlier forms of life." Taking the Professor's own hint as to the uncertainty of science we feel constrained to ask him for a few indubitable facts just to establish satisfactorily this little point. There are none however forthcoming. We ask for proof, and he gives us a metaphor about the Cathedral of St. Mark's. In sooth, we did not expect a demonstration, for it is well-known that no passage from a lower species to the human has ever come under the observation of any one; neither has the same been brought about by experiments of any kind. As therefore the statement in question does not rest upon either observation or experiment, the Jachin and Boaz of science, we submit that it would be more correct to say "it is assumed etc." than "it is certain, etc." And if it is only an assumption that we are descendants of the apes, surely we may be allowed to throw such a theory to the dogs.

Now in Genesis 1 you can count seven times where the expression, “after his kind,” occurs (vv. 11, 12, 21, 24, 25), and twice, “after their kind” (vv. 21 and 25); that is nine times in all. Now that puts an impossible gulf between the species. For evolution to be true that gulf must be removed. But that gulf remains and has never been bridged yet, and never will. Never in nature or in fossil remains is there the slightest indication of one species rising to a higher species, and that is absolutely necessary if evolution is to be true. But nine times over Moses gives the lie to evolution in Genesis 1.

Whichever way you turn, evolution is met with insurmountable difficulties, and faced with facts, which are absolutely destructive of the theory. Transmutation is necessary for the theory, yet there is not one single bit of proof that such ever took place. If the theory is true, then transmutation must have occurred millions of times, and yet no fossil remains, no skeleton remains, nothing living on this earth bears evidence to it. It were impossible to have fossils and skeletons of the different species, and yet have none of the far more numerous intermediate forms demanded by evolutionists, which must according to their theory have needed millions of years and numberless generations for their evolution.

“ All things were made by Him ”. He was the originator, the designer and the maker of the vast universe and every creature within it, “ for without Him was not anything made that was made ”. How wonderfully these simple yet great statements clear the air for us. We have no need to waste our time and weary our brains in the vain search for some missing link to establish some groundless hypothesis that those who would banish the Creator from His creation have put forth, we begin with the truth that the Word has made all things, that He upholds all things, and will eventually make all things serve His glory. How wonderful must be that wisdom that planned the infinite variety that even we can see in creation, and how great the power that has bound every part of it together and holds it all together in a harmonious universe.