There is nothing but matter. Matter is eternal. Therefore all things are eternal. Does this have the right ring? It must be so if infidel materialism be the true philosophy. And if it is so we are all deceived; for universal conscience, and universal language, are both against it.

If there is anything that is not eternal there was a time when it began to be, it was created in some way, intelligently or by accident. If intelligently, the Bible idea is, and must be correct. If without an intelligence it was not, and could not be by evolution, for creation by evolution could not, and can not be; because that which is not in a thing can not be evolved out of it, unless you can get more out of a thing than there is in it; which is absurd. So evolution is a negation of the doctrine of a creation. And the doctrine that there is nothing but matter, and that matter is eternal, is a denial of creation by intelligence or otherwise. The infidel says, life began to be; for there was a time when there was no life. But they say matter is eternal. And life is not eternal. Therefore life is not matter. Gentlemen, will you get away with this conclusion? The opposite is equally fatal to the materialistic theory. Thus, matter is eternal. There is nothing but matter. Therefore life is eternal. Can you get this conclusion out of, or away from logical deductions?

But infidels say, “Life is a property of certain elements of matter.” Very well; can you separate things and their properties? Can you get them so far apart as to hold the one class things to be eternal, and the other class properties not? Your philosophy of spontaneous generation of life says, Yes, yes, there was a time when it began to be, and it was spontaneously generated, of course it was. Very well; there is nothing but matter. Matter did not begin to be; it is eternal. Life began to be, therefore it is not matter; otherwise it is eternal according to infidel logic, unless you take the position that life is nothing!

Matter is eternal.

That which began to be is not eternal.

Mind began to be;

Therefore, mind is not eternal.

Very well; let’s look at it once more.

Matter is eternal; it did not begin to be.

Mind is not eternal; it began to be;

Therefore, mind is not matter.

Where, gentlemen, O where will you place mind? is it also nothing?

That which began to be was created.

Life and mind, both, began to be;

Therefore, life and mind were created.

Question. Were they the effects of an inadequate cause? Inanimate and unintelligent nature would not be an adequate cause. Did these do more than animated intelligence can do? Gentlemen of skeptical proclivities answer.

If so, is this not evolution backwards? Is it not retrogression, or development at the expense of the loss of power to rise to the plane of unintelligent mind and life evolving nature? Do you say, organic life does evolve organic life and mind. From a state of death? Without antecedent life and mind being drawn upon? Come, gentlemen; how is this? You say inanimate Nature produced life and mind without the previous existence of either; can you duplicate that feat with your power? If you can’t are you not below the inanimate Nature which did it for the first time? Can inanimate forces do more than living intelligent Nature? Do you say no! Then demonstrate the philosophy of spontaneous generation of life, and show yourself A GOD.

An effort to produce organic life without antecedent life, or where it is not, is an effort to create organic life. The efforts of unbelievers to produce organic life by spontaneous generation, is an effort to produce organic life where it is not. Therefore the efforts of unbelievers to produce organic life, by spontaneous generation, is an effort to create organic life.

An effort to create organic life where it is not is an effort to rise into the character of a God, and show one’s self the equal of God. But why should this effort not be made? If unintelligent dead matter has performed the feat, without wisdom or design, why should it not be performed by living intelligent Nature? Gentlemen, demonstrate your theory. Do you say, we have given up all hope of witnessing its demonstration? Well, well, has any man ever witnessed it? You say no. Then it is not certain knowledge. Science is certain knowledge. Therefore spontaneous generation of life and intelligent being is not science. Now, gentlemen, don’t prostitute science at the shrine of your nonsensical guessing any more. Throw your guessing to one side and acknowledge God like wise men, and be no longer foolish.

Do you say life was always in matter? “Then we must conclude that it is in matter in the same sense in which all other corporeal qualities are in bodies, so as to be divisible together with it, and some of it be in every part of the matter.” This is ancient Hylozoism.

On the other hand, the “Stoical Atheists supposed there was one life only in the entire mass of matter, after such a manner, as that none of the parts of it by themselves should have any life of their own.” Now, according to this Stoical theory, “life is no corporeal quality or form, but an incorporeal substance.” There are, really, but two sorts of Atheism which have been in any thing like extensive notice. First, “Such as claim that life is essential to matter, and therefore ingenerable and incorruptible.” Second, “Those who claim that life and everything, besides the bare substance of matter, or extended bulk, is merely accidental, generable, or corruptible, rising out of some mixture or modification of matter.” Is life, perception and understanding essential to matter, as such? Is senseless matter perfectly wise, without consciousness? Such is Hylozoism, and it is outrageous nonsense. Very few men ever had credulity enough to receive and appropriate it. This form of Atheism was a forlorn and abandoned thing, without form or systemization, for centuries gone by and it has few very few votaries, even now. The second kind of Atheism “is that of a true notion of body, that it is nothing but resisting bulk,” associated with atomic physiology, which is an old theory resurrected of late, and displayed anew, with a show of deep philosophy and wisdom. But that mind and understanding itself sprang from senseless nature and chance, as a mere accident, or from the unguided and undirected motions of matter, is also nonsensical, and utterly absurd. Were there infinite atoms in mutual encounters, dashing and striking against each other? Did these atoms, devoid of sense and life, with their reflections and repurcussions, their cohésions, implexions, and entanglements, their scattered dispersions and divulsions, produce life and intelligence? If so, we will call it by the name of chance. Hear this, O, ye scientists, there is but one choice, and that is between God and chance!

The chance theory is that “infinite atoms of various sizes and figures, devoid of life and sense, moving fortuitously from eternity in infinite space, and making successive encounters and various implexions and entanglements with one another, produced first a confused chaos of these omnifarious particles or atoms, which, jumbling together with infinite variety of motions by the tugging of their different and contrary forces, hindered and restricted each other until, by joint conspiracy, they conglomerated into a vortex or vortexes, where, after many convulsions and evolutions, molitions and essays, in which all manner of tricks were tried,” without design, “they chanced in length of time to settle into the form and system of things known as earth, air and fire, sun, moon and stars, plants, animals and men;” so that senseless atoms unconsciously moved themselves, although dead as grains of sand, and kept up the motion until, without any living substance underlying, and adequate to produce motion, all things so beautifully arranged sprang into life and being. O, ye stars, what is the magnitude of an infidel’s credulity? What is there which he can not believe? It is no longer to be set down that he is a reasonable man. “The fool saith in his heart there is no God.” There is a grand relation between the eternal spirit and that eternal substance which lies behind and underneath all that is, and that relation is the relation between the “King Eternal” and that over which he presides and which he controls. So out of nothing nothing comes.