But that was not what the
Truth told them. On the fourth day of creation, simultaneously with the
fish and every living creature that moveth in the ocean, the waters
brought forth "fowl that might fly above the earth in the open firmament
of heaven." Such on this subject was the plain and incontrovertible
statement of the inspired writer in the holy Scripture. And now, how did science confirm this statement, and scatter at once to
the winds the foolish, brain-spun cobwebs of our windy, vaporous, modern
evolutionists? These diagrams which he held before him would
sufficiently answer that important question. He would show them that
there was no real community of structure in any way between the two
classes of birds and reptiles. Let them observe the tail, the wings, the
feathers, the breast-bone, the entire anatomy, and they would see at
once that Darwin's ridiculous, ill-digested theory was wholly opposed to
all the plain and demonstrable facts of nature. It was a very learned
discourse, certainly; very crushing, very overwhelming, very convincing
(when you heard one side only), and not Netta alone, but the whole
congregation of intelligent, inquiring artisans as well, was utterly
carried away by its logic, its clearness, and its eloquent rhetoric. Last of all, Cyril Milliter raised his two white hands solemnly before
him, and uttered thus his final peroration. "In conclusion, what proof can they offer us of their astounding
assertions?" he asked, almost contemptuously. "Have they a single fact,
a single jot or tittle of evidence to put in on this matter, as against
the universal voice of authoritative science, from the days of
Aristotle, of Linnæus, or of Cuvier, to the days of Owen, of Lyell, and
of Carpenter? Not one! Whenever they can show me, living or fossil, an
organism which unites in itself in any degree whatsoever the
characteristics of birds and reptiles--an organism which has at once
teeth and feathers; or which has a long lizard-like tail and true wings;
or which combines the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned to
the one class with the anatomical peculiarities I have here assigned to
the other: then, and then only, will I willingly accede to their absurd
hypothesis. But they have not done it. They cannot do it. They will
never do it. A great gulf eternally separates the two classes. A vast
gap intervenes impassably between them. That gulf will never be
lessened, that gap will never be bridged over, until Truth is finally
confounded with falsehood, and the plain facts of nature and the Word
are utterly forgotten in favour of the miserable, inconsistent figments
of the poor fallible human imagination." As they walked home from worship that morning, Netta felt she had never
before so greatly admired and wondered at her husband. How utterly he
had crushed the feeble theory of these fanciful system-mongers, how
clearly he had shown the absolute folly of their presumptuous and
arrogant nonsense! Netta could not avoid telling him so, with a flush of
honest pride in her beautiful face: and Cyril flushed back immediately
with conscious pleasure at her wifely trust and confidence. But he was
tired with the effort, he said, and must go for a little walk alone in
the afternoon: a walk among the fields and the Downs, where he could
commune by himself with the sights and sounds of truth-telling nature. Netta was half-piqued, indeed, that he should wish even so to go without
her; but she said nothing: and so after their early dinner, Cyril
started away abstractedly by himself, and took the lane behind the
village that led up by steep inclines on to the heavy moorland with its
fresh bracken and its purple heather. As he walked along hastily, his mind all fiery-full of bones and
fossils, he came at last to the oolite quarry on the broken hillside. Feeling tired, he turned in to rest awhile in the shade on one of the
great blocks of building stone hewn out by the workmen; and by way of
occupation he began to grub away with his knife, half-unconsciously as
he sat, at a long flat slab of slaty shale that projected a little from
the sheer face of the fresh cutting. As he did so, he saw marks of
something very like a bird's feather on its upper surface. The sight
certainly surprised him a little. "Birds in the oolite," he said to
himself quickly; "it's quite impossible! Birds in the oolite! this is
quite a new departure. Besides, such a soft thing as a feather could
never conceivably be preserved in the form of a fossil." Still, the queer object interested him languidly, by its odd and timely
connection with the subject of his morning sermon; and he looked at it
again a little more closely. By Jove, yes, it was a feather, not a doubt
in the world of that now; he could see distinctly the central shaft of a
tail-quill, and the little barbed branches given off regularly on either
side of it. The shale on which it was impressed was a soft, light-brown
mudstone; in fact, a fragment of lithographic slate, exactly like that
employed by lithographers for making pictures. He could easily see how
the thing had happened; the bird had fallen into the soft mud, long ages
since, before the shale had hardened, and the form of its feathers had
been distinctly nature-printed, while it was still moist, upon its
plastic surface. But a bird in the oolite! that was a real discovery;
and, as the Gospel Evangelists were no Sabbatarians, Cyril did not
scruple in the pursuit of Truth to dig away at the thin slab with his
knife, till he egged it out of the rock by dexterous side pressure, and
laid it triumphantly down at last for further examination on the big
stone that stood before him. Gazing in the first delight of discovery at his unexpected treasure, he
saw in a moment that it was a very complete and exquisitely printed
fossil. So perfect a pictorial representation of an extinct animal he
had never seen before in his whole lifetime; and for the first moment or
two he had no time to do anything else but admire silently the exquisite
delicacy and extraordinary detail of this natural etching. But after a
minute, the professional interest again asserted itself, and he began to
look more carefully into the general nature of its curious and
unfamiliar anatomical structure. As he looked, Cyril Milliter felt a horrible misgiving arise suddenly
within him. The creature at which he was gazing so intently was not a
bird, it was a lizard. And yet--no--it was not a lizard--it was a bird. "Why--these are surely feathers--yes, tail feathers--quite
unmistakable.... But they are not arranged in a regular fan; the quills
stand in pairs, one on each side of each joint in a long tail, for all
the world exactly like a lizard's.... Still, it must be a bird; for,
see, these are wings ... and that is certainly a bird's claw.... But
here's the head; great heavens! what's this?... A jaw, with teeth in
it...." Cyril Milliter leaned back, distractedly, and held his beating
forehead between his two pale hands.