Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 53:209 (Jan 1896)
Article: Christianity And The Evolution Of Rational Life
Author: John Thomas Gulick

BSac 53:209 (Jan 1896) p. 68

Christianity And The Evolution Of Rational Life

A Statement Made On Solicitation Of The Late George H. Romanes

Rev. John T. Gulick

[The author says of the following article, that it “was not written With any thought of publication, but simply as a reply by letter to a correspondent who asked ‘On what lines of Christian evidence do you mainly rely?’ and saying that his own belief had been shattered by what seemed to him overpowering assaults from the side of rationality.” lie is willing, however, to have it published in the Bibliotheca Sacra. The interest and value of it is greatly enhanced when it is known that the person who solicited the statement was the distinguished George H. Romanes, late editor of Nature (the principal scientific periodical of England), and that this reply, with the distinguished savant’s personal acquaintance with Mr. Gulick, was among the prominent influences which led to Mr. Romanes’ substantial return to the Christian faith.1

It will naturally be asked, How did this intimate acquaintance spring up between Mr, Romanes, the recognized expounder of Darwinism after Darwin’s death, and Mr. Gulick, the obscure missionary in foreign lands? The answer is a most comforting one to those whose lot is cast in apparent obscurity, and who are tempted to lament that their lamp is hid under a bushel; for, in what we are here to relate, there is a striking illustration, that, under the direction of an all-wise Providence, there is no such thing as obscurity. Like their Master, the true servants of Christ, wherever they are, are doing a work which cannot be hid.

Mr. Gulick was born of missionary parents, in the Sandwich Islands, and was for some time himself a. missionary there, though later he has been assigned a held in Japan. While in the Sandwich Islands he occupied his spare time in making an exhaustive study of the land mollusks of the archipelago. As the immediate result of this work, carried on for many years, numerous articles were published by Mr. Gulick in the scientific journals, beginning with one entitled “The Variation of Species as related to their Geographical Distribution, illustrated by the Achatinel-

BSac 53:209 (Jan 1896) p. 69

linae,” published in Nature, July 18, 1872, in which it was demonstrated that “the degrees of divergence between nearly allied forms are roughly measured by the number of miles by which they are separated, and in the fact that this correspondence between the ratios of distance and the ratios of divergence is not perceptibly disturbed by passing over the crest of the island into a region where the rainfall is mu...