An objection is not "outworn" until answered, and to speak of the
demise of a generally accepted theory is hardly scientific. We will
not allow the evolutionist to dismiss so weighty an objection with a
wave of the hand. Prof. Newman, in his "Readings in Evolution,"
p. 68, gives 60,000,000 years as the probable time since life began.
The writer, having based arguments upon that assumption, was surprised
to receive a private letter from him claiming that life has existed
for 500,000,000 years. Indeed Prof. Russell, of Princeton, says, in
his "Rice Lectures," that the earth is probably 4,000,000,000 years
old, possibly 8,000,000,000! We can do nothing but gasp, while the
bewildering guesses come in, and we wait for the next estimate. We
note their utter abandon, as they make a raid on God's eternity to
support a theory that would dethrone Him.

But these extravagantly long periods required by the theory, science
cannot grant, for the following reasons:--


1. According to the nebular hypothesis, and Helmholtz's contraction
theory, accounting for the regular supply of heat from the sun, the
sun itself is not likely more than 20,000,000 years old, and, of
course, the earth is much younger. Both of these theories are quite
generally accepted by scientists, and have much to support them.
Prof. Young, of Princeton, in his Astronomy, p. 156, says, "The solar
radiation can be accounted for on the hypothesis first proposed by
Helmholtz, that the sun is shrinking slowly but continually. It is a
matter of demonstration that an annual shrinkage of about 300 feet in
the sun's diameter would liberate sufficient heat to keep up its
radiation without any fall in its temperature".... The sun is not