The Cordele Dispatch And Daily Sentinel

ALL DOWN THE AGES
We do not know what is to be the outcome of the Scopes trial which is scheduled to start today in the little Tennessee town of Dayton, but it isn't going to end the search for the truth-nor is it going to nail down the disposition of men to look further into the realms of the unknown. It most likely will not dispose of any of the age old ignorance that prevails in all the persecution which is aimed at those who engage in research. How nature and humankind came to the present wonderful stages of being will not cease to be a charm for the scientists, nor will the unlettered cease to condemn and ridicule the search for the truth-but what a great day for little Dayton-what a great day!

And could Charles Darwin, who was seventy-five years ago giving the world the results of his findings in the greatest life study of organic evolution that has ever become a gift to the scientific world in any form- could that man in his search for the "reason why" in the world wake up this morning and look in upon the stilted, "high-collared, but low-browed, hairy-bodied human set-to" that is here in America, where invention and discovery have overturned the world in the past hundred years- where mankind is free to search for the truth and know the truth-where, after all is done and said, people hail knowledge with a hungry delight -in little Dayton-we start today with the persecution of one who dared to tell his students that such a man as Charles Darwin lived and that he put forth certain theories as to the processes of nature. But this has been the way of human progress all down the ages.

In the light of the past, we may not look for anything better. On the other hand we should rejoice that this is the land of liberty-that men may still go on in their search for the truth-may still with unhampered mind and soul face God and nature and "tune in" to the infinite harmony which, in spite of all persecution, brings it a bit nearer each year-- each thousand years--to the whole truth.

The Dayton indictment has precedents which reach back for centuries. In America they date from Plymouth-in the world at large, from the dawn of the christian era. The Modernists and the Fundamental- ists, with Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick as the central figure in the contro versy. have a fight that is akin to the Scopes case.

The last actual trial occurred in Cleveland, O., in May, 1924, when William Montgomery Brown, former Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Ar- kansas, was pronounced guilty by a church court of holding beliefs at odds with the accepted doctrine of his denomination. He publicly avow- ed communism and so-called atheism.

In the '90s, Professor Charles A. Briggs. a Presbyterian seminarian of New York City was charged with having expressed himself at variance with the Westminister Confession. The New York Presbytery cleared him, but the General Assembly of the church reversed the decision and pro- nounced a verdict of suspension.

Dr. Richard Newton, a New York Episcopalian, of the same period, cut short charges against his "broad churchmanship" by demanding a form al trial. His demand was met but the plaintiffs failed to appear.

David Swing of Chicago left the Presbyterian faith to preach independ- ently in the '70s when those citing him for alleged heresy refused to abide by his acquittal at the hands of the Chicago Presbytery and threaten- ed to appeal to the Synod.

Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper, Sunday School worker. was' haled before the Presbyterian authorities in San Fran cisco about 1870.

Theologians to survive heresy, pro-
ceedings and gain what was reported as a firmer position were Horace Bushnell. Congregationalist of Hart- ford, Conn., in 1849; Prof. Philip Schaff of the German Reformed Church in 1845 was echoed for thirty-five years in the "Mercersburg controversy" Lyman Beecher, father of Henry Ward Beecher, and Presbyterian pastor in Cin- cinnati, in 1835 and Rev. Albert Barnes, Presbyterian of Philadelphia, 1837.

The witchcraft delusion in Salem Village was the tragic climax of cor- troversalism in Colonial days when nineteen were hanged, and one "press- ed to death" in 1692.

Henry Dunster was forced to re- sign as the first president of Har- vard College in 1654 after he publicly doubted validity of infant baptism. He also was indicted by a grand jury as a heretic and sentenced to "a. pub- lic admonition" and placed under bond for good behavior.

Samuel Gorton,, religionist, : about 1640 was virtually. deported 'to Eng- land because of the unpopularity of turned to America under letter. of safe conduct: issued by the Earl of Warwick to the Massachusetts magis-
The first heretic of Christian times was Simon Magus, the Magician, of Samaria, according to the writings of St. Alphonsus M. Liguori. Simon was cited in Acts of the Apostles as having attempted to buy the secret of laying on of hands from the Apostles Peter and Paul. The sale of holy things ever afterward became known as "simony."