NEXT TO THE BRAIN,  the eye is the most wonderful of all God's gifts to His creatures.  Were all creatures doomed to live in perpetual darkness, life — if it were possible at all — would be a dismal and boring experience of prosaic emptiness.  After a survey, even though limited, of the eyes of animals and man, one is impressed with this:  each creature has been given eyes, by the Creator, that best suits its needs and station in life.

             A hare's eyes are so placed that it can look backward as well as forward without turning its head.  It needs eyes like that, for it is the victim of predators, and must be able to see them to have a chance to escape.  It has a complete 3600  circle of vision.

            Hawks — day animals — can see the slightest movement of a tiny animal far below them in the grass.  Hawks need keen sight to spot and catch their food.

            Birds generally "have a sense of vision that enables them to see with greater precision than any other living creature.  Sight is their dominant sense, helping them to catch the tiny darting insects that so often form their diet."

            The visual acuity of some birds' eyes is from eight to ten times that of the human eye.  The eyes of hawks, eagles and vultures that dive toward their prey, have a peculiar ability to change focus rapidly.  This speedy change of focus enables birds to catch insects on the wing, and to keep a tiny rodent spotted in the few seconds of a rapid power dive.  "Birds' eyes are the finest and most remarkable of all the eyes of earth, being often both telescope and microscope."  (Thomas Shastid, ophthalmologist).

            The very large eyes of the owl are admirably adapted to seeing in semi-darkness, so that the owl can catch insects that fly after dark.  "the sensitivity of the owl's eye in conditions of low light intensity has been shown experimentally to be about ten times that of the human eye."

            The owl, as well as other birds, has an extra eyelid — a complete transparent membrane that sweeps down across the surface of the eye, starting from the inner corner.  It not only moistens the eyeball (making it unnecessary for the large feathered eyelids to blink shut), but also protects the eye when its owner is forced to fly through such hazards as wind blown dust and the closely laced branches of trees.  This transparent nictitating membrane is drawn across the eyes of many birds whenever they are in flight, as it was designed to give protection.

            This transparent membrane that serves such a useful purpose MUST of necessity be a complete and entire piece of equipment to serve its intended purpose.  IT IS UTTERLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR SUCH A PRACTICAL ORGAN TO DEVELOP GRADUALLY.  Hence, the only solution to the problem of how, why and when this "transparent membrane" originated, is in the fact of instantaneous creation.

            The MUD-SKIPPER of the tropics, which spends part of its life in water and part on land, "has moveable, bulbous eyes which are adjustable to vision in the air as well as in the water.  The fish has a special muscle which enables it to shift the lens close to the retina, so it can even produce a sharp image of distant objects."

            Instead of having a thin transparent membrane, as birds have, to cover the eye while in flight, a whale has another highly specialized adaptation.  A whale is able to dive to great depths in the ocean.  Its whole body is adjusted to and adapted for this purpose.  At a depth of 100 feet, the pressure of the water is 60 pounds to the square inch; but at 4,000 feet it is 1830 pounds!  The result is, deep-water fish can not come to the surface:  some will actually explode!  Nor can most surface fish dive to great depths: they would be pressured to death!  But a whale is "at home" in both surface waters and in great depths of the ocean.  The eye would be the first organ to suffer from such exposure to terrible pressure; so the Creator equipped the eyes of whales with "a sclerotic coat, very thick and strong," to protect the eye when the whale goes into a deep dive.

            When attacked by shark or sword-fish, the whale has only one effective defense: it dives to great depths — and if its pursuing enemies persist in accompanying the whale in its sudden plunge, they are killed by the pressure.

            QUESTION:  Since observation proves that most other inhabitants of the sea dare not leave their depth element, but will perish if they do, how can one explain the phenomenon of the whale's ability to plunge to great depths and live?  If it had to develop this ability through long ages, it certainly would have perished in every attempt.  This unique ability had to be given to the whale when it was created.  And how is one to explain that extra strong, heavy coating for the eye?  Obviously the eye of the whale was made to withstand the pressure of great depths — and at the same time function near the surface!

            If this ability to dive to great depths was gradually "evolved" why did not sharks and swordfish obtain the same ability?

            "The fish with the 'Built-in Bifocals' " — the Anableps dowei.  This unusual fish lives in the quiet rivers and estuaries of the Caribbean.  He feeds on titbits which float on the surface of the water; therefore it is necessary for him to see in the air as well as in the water: and God made him with that marvelous ability.  Anableps dowei has only two eyes (not four), but each of his eyes has two pupils.  As Anableps swims along the surface, he can see clearly both above and below the surface — through air and through water at the same time!  This highly complicated arrangement must have been so designed!

            The Anableps dowei is not the only animal that has "built-in bifocals."  The WHIRLIGIG BEETLE, which we may see on the surface of quiet water, is equipped to look up and down at the same time!  Its eyes are divided so that the upper part sees the surface of the water and the lower part sees below the surface.  There is a black layer of pigment between the two parts so that light from one does not affect the other.  The entire arrangement is so highly complex, so practical for its intended purpose, so efficient, one must admit IT WAS DESIGNED AND MADE THAT WAY.

            The eyes of the WOOD TURTLE are tipped downward to help it see what it is eating.

            The camel — and other animals — have special built-in wind glasses!  This desert animal, created for life and service on the desert, is equipped with a transparent third eyelid, which may be drawn at will over the eyeball without significantly impairing the sight.  This protects the eye from sharp bits of sand in desert storms.

            Most DEEP-SEA CREATURES possess luminous organs which they flash on and off as occasion demands, and so, though they live in total darkness, they have eyes, and are able to make use of them!  This special arrangement was manifestly DESIGNED for them by the Creator.  Such miracles in nature do not "just happen" nor "evolve through chance mutations."  What proof have we for that statement?  This analogy: every complicated, working machine in the world today — such as the telephone, the radio, the camera, the typewriter, the automobile, the electric motor — was designed and made by some man; that is, by an outside intelligence.  Complicated, complex working machines (whether living or inanimate) DO NOT "JUST HAPPEN" but in all instances are DESIGNED AND MADE BY AN INTELLIGENCE SUPERIOR TO THAT OF THE "MACHINE."

            Most land vertebrates have perfectly adapted and well-functioning eyelids that blink several times each minute to keep the eyeball clear and moist.  Of all land vertebrates, only snakes have no eyelids at all.  Their eyes are fixed in a permanent glassy stare.  To protect the delicate, lidless eyes of the snake, there is a transparent shield permanently in place over the entire eye opening.

            The position of the eyes in the head of an animal may show great specialization.  The alligator (a reptile) and the hippopotamus (a mammal) both have their eyes set in a raised position on the tops of their heads.  With these "periscope eyes" they can float in the water, almost entirely submerged, and still keep an eye on their surroundings.  Clearly, this was so DESIGNED for them.

Different TYPES OF EYES

            Not only do we observe in nature the phenomenon of perfect "adaptability" in the eyes of animals, but also we see great versatility in TYPES and KINDS of eyes.

            Almost every one of the more than 38,000 species of vertebrate animals known to zoologists (4,000 mammals, 14,000 birds, 4,000 reptiles, 2,000 amphibians, and 14,000 fish) is born with functional camera-style eyes.  There are a few of these animals, (mostly fish and salamanders) that live in total darkness (in the pools and streams of deep subterranean caves) that lose their sight as they mature.

            Herein is a perfect argument against evolution:  "Many thousands of years ago the ancestors of these blind cave species must have been carried in from the outer world by a surface stream."  Even though thousands of generations have come and gone, these fish are still born with eyes!  The old Lamarckian idea of loss of characters through disuse has been exploded a thousand times.  Through lack of use, the new-born fish soon lose their sight; but the essential nature of these fish to have eyes PERSISTS despite the fact that they have no use for their eyes.

            The animal kingdom as a whole presents many different plans and styles of eyes.  None however can compare with the wonderful "camera eye" possessed by all vertebrates.

            "All vertebrate eyes are built much along the lines of a modern camera, but the all around precision and adaptability of the eye far surpasses our most modern and expensive cameras." (Nature's Wonders). (For a discussion of the marvels of the human eye, "camera" type — see Chapter 11, The Body of Man).

            Beside the "camera" type eye possessed by all vertebrates, there are other methods used by the Creator to give sight to His creatures. *

            * It is interesting to observe that the cuttlefish, squid, and octopus, closely related to the nautilus, have eyes equipped with true lenses, the most specialized eyes of any of the invertebrates.

            This strange fact presents a powerful argument against evolution, for WHY should these three marine mollusks have such highly developed eyes, similar to those of the higher vertebrates, when they are far below the organizational status of the vertebrates?  Admitting that GOD made them so, the problem is solved; but to evolution it remains unsolved.

            We list the following types of eyes.

            (1)  The eye of the chambered nautilus lacks a lens, but functions well on the principle of the "pinhole camera," where a very tiny opening gives a universal focus.

            In the anthropods (which include all the insects, spiders, crabs, centipedes and millipedes), by far the largest and "most successful" group of invertebrates, is a fascinating variety of both "simple" and "compound" eyes.

            (2)  The spider's eyes are known as "SIMPLE" eyes, because each has but ONE transparent lens to focus light rays on the sensitive nerve cells beneath it.  If it be not as elaborate as the compound eye, the Creator has compensated spiders by giving them eight of these simple eyes.  They are placed strategically in two rows at the front of the head.

            Most millepedes have one or more simple eyes on each side of the head.

            The CYCLOPS, a fresh-water copepod, has one simple median eye.

            (3)  In the insects that have COMPOUND eyes, there is great variety.  Some insects have enormous eyes that nearly encompass their heads.  The common housefly has large compound eyes.  The dragonfly represents the extreme, as it needs the best sight possible to capture flying insects on the wing.  The compound eyes of the dragonfly have 30,000 facets!  Each of these 30,000 units has its own light condensing apparatus!  Next to the camera eye, the compound eye is most efficient.  However, no man knows the exact nature of the image an insect gets from its elaborate compound eyes.

            (4)  Most insects have a combination of both simple and compound eyes.  For example, the GRASSHOPPER has five separate and distinct eyes, three small simple eyes and two large compound eyes prominently placed at the sides of the head.

            (5)  Some animals (crustaceans) like the crayfish and the lobster have compound eyes that are on stalks.  These eyes can be moved around for better vision.

            (6)  The sphendon (lizard-like reptile of Australia, about two feet long) has a third eye, or pineal eye, on the top of its head!

            (7)  There is also great variety in the way the pupils of eyes contract.  In man's eyes there is a round pupil, and the opening automatically expands or contracts to let more or less light into the retina. In the domestic cat the enormous pupil opening will close to a vertical slit in the presence of bright light. On the other hand, the pupil opening in the eye of a horse takes the shape of a horizontal bar.  Lizards and other lower vertebrates reduce their pupil openings "to a great variety of odd shapes and patterns."

            Blind evolution would not be able to develop all of these various styles of eyes, all of which function perfectly.

MORE MIRACLES — AND MORE PROBLEMS FOR THE EVOLUTIONIST

            Let us contemplate a few more "miracles" about "eyes" in nature, and the problems they present to the evolutionist.

            (1)  Who can explain why the eyes of the Star-gazer (a fish of the Weever species) are placed horizontally on the upper part of its head, "in a position with but few parallels in nature," so that it is always looking up at the sky?  Because of this, it is given its scientific name Uranoscopus.

            The Star-gazer completely buries itself in the sand on the ocean floor, so that only its eyes are visible.

            Starting with the average fish with its eyes on the sides of its head, evolution has to explain why and how the peculiar eyes of the Star-gazer were evolved.  With eyes normally placed, the Star-gazer would not be able to bury itself in the sand and see; in fact it would have no inclination to act as the Star-gazer now acts.  And, one must conclude, the only reason the Star-gazer acts as it does, and buries itself, is because it has eyes on the top of its head!  In other words, "evolution" didn't make the Star-gazer as it is; the Star-gazer acts as it does because it was made that way in the beginning!

            (2)  The Starfish is an oddity if ever there was one.  WHY would any sea creature "evolve" into such an apparently absurd shape — as far as "sea-life" shapes go — as a Starfish?

            The common species of Starfish have five arms or "rays," on the under side of which are hundreds of tube feet; and on the end of each arm is an eye!  The Starfish is unable to swim but it walks along the bottom very slowly, over sand and shells, through a most ingenius system.  It can go in any of the five directions its arms point to.

            What did this strange creature evolve from?  And WHY?  The evolutionist has no logical answer.  What was the starting point from which finally came the Starfish?  Who could possibly trace the sequence of "chance mutations" that finally brought to pass the Starfish with an eye at the end of each of its arms?  It is far more reasonable to believe the Starfish was made as it is, and has always been as it is!

            (3) Many snails have eyes at the ends of tentacles, which they can extend or compress, much as a telescope is lengthened or shortened.  With these eyes at the ends of tentacles a snail can "look around a corner" without exposing its body.  (Nature Magazine).

            This unusual ability to see with eyes at the end of stalks is no doubt a great advantage to the snail.  But how could such an ingenius device be brought into existence in such a lowly animal by "chance mutations?"  It is as easy to believe that the 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson "just happened" as to believe that such miracles, and such well-planned devices in nature, are the result of blind chance.  Any one who has focused a telescope knows how careful the adjustment must be before the image is clear.  Who gave the lowly snail the uncanny ability to see with its adjustable eyes, that can be lengthened or shortened at will?  The successful use of such eyes involves optical and engineering principles that can be solved only by the Master Workman!

            (4)  The eye of a Pigmy shrew is little larger than the head of a pin; but it has the same camera-like eye arrangement as the grapefruit-sized eye of a great blue whale!  Such an eye (as the Pigmy shrew has) must have been made by a mechanical Genius!

            (5)  The sole, or turbot, like the Stargazer, has its eyes directed upward.  The fish lies in the sand at the ocean bottom in the daytime.

            "They have extraordinary eyes that move in all directions, as though mounted on a universal swivel.  Their eyes, with a rotary movement, will follow the movements (of an enemy above them); and those movements very often betray their presence."  (The Underwater Naturalist; p. 219).

            "Only at night do these fish search the surface of the mud, looking for worms.  As this takes place at night and as their eyes are directed upwards, vision plays no role in their search, which is conducted purely by a sense of smell and by a sense of touch, from. . . .special filaments on the under surface of the head."  (The Underwater Naturalist; p. 219).

            Question: if evolution is responsible for this state of affairs, didn't it make a serious mistake in placing this fish's eyes where it could not see the food it needs?  Until it developed those special "smell" and "touch" filaments, the poor fish would starve to death!  Who designed the "swivel" eyes of the sole?  And Who gave it the sensitive "smell" and "touch" filaments?

            (6)  A Chameleon's eye "is one of the most remarkable organs exhibited by any terrestrial animal."  And yet it is strangely limited.

            "The Chameleon has large protuberant eyes, covered with thick granular lids, perforated only by minute apertures for the pupils.  THE TWO EYES CAN BE MOVED INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER.  One can look straight ahead, while the other looks backward or up. . . .Why this doubling of the field of vision should accompany such excessively minute openings to the lids is a mystery."

            If evolution alone were responsible, it would NOT have put a handicap on the otherwise marvelous eyes of the chameleon!  WHY WERE SUCH WONDERFUL EYES, " able to move independently of each other" — thus securing for the owner two entirely different fields of observation — SO DRASTICALLY LIMITED BY PLACING THEM BEHIND HEAVY GRANULAR LIDS WHICH HAVE ONLY "MINUTE OPENINGS?"  God, who does all things well, designed both their wonderful eyes and their limiting lids.  "Handicaps" like this are so designed by the Creator who works for the welfare of all nature — not just one animal.  "Evolution" we are told works for "the survival of the fittest."  Deliberate and well-placed HANDICAPS are perfect evidence that nature is God's handiwork.

            (7)  The large eyes of the honeybee make use of the ultraviolet portion of the sun's spectrum to see with.  Man's eyes are not so made.  As this gives a greater vision, why did "evolution" drop this phenomenal ability from the eyes of man?  As it is a distinct advantage "natural selection" would have clung to it!  Evolution has no adequate explanation of such phenomena.

            (8)  The eye of the horseshoe crab seems to have a unique feature not found in other animals.

            "The eye of the horseshoe crab is amazingly simple.  It is a compound eye composed of individual units (ommatidia), similar in type to the eyes of insects.  But unlike any other known animal, the horseshoe crab has a separate nerve fiber proceeding from each of these units toward the brain."  (L. J. Milne, in "Scientific American").

            The eye of the horseshoe crab is DIFFERENT from all animals below and above it on the "evolutionary ladder."  This presents a real problem for the evolutionist. From whence did the horseshoe crab get this unique system of vision?  The fact is, the Sovereign, Almighty Creator made it so!

            (9)  The kingfisher and some other birds have a special area in the retina called the "fovea," in which the cells that line that area each have a private nerve fiber to the brain.  This gives maximum visual acuteness to that limited area (the fovea).  If a bird desires special visual acuity it turns its head or eyes until the image is focused in the fovea.  Some creatures actually have TWO of these fovea in each eye.  With this magnificent system, not only can they obtain more acute sight, in a limited area, but also they can actually (by using both fovea areas) get a "bifocal" effect, and gain an accurate impression of both distance and depth.  Owls use their eyes binocularly at all times.

            "The kingfisher is one of the strangest users of the two-fovea system.  Its eyes can notice both an object in the air and the exact position of a fish below the water surface, and also it can follow the fish accurately after its sudden dive into the pond.

            "Vision in the air and vision in water are entirely different.  When water comes into contact with the clear cornea it takes away all visual functions of the cornea. . . . (Therefore) in water the lens must act alone.  Hence an eye that has normal vision in water is pathetically near-sighted in air. . . .The kingfisher (can see well in air and under water) through possession of an egg-shaped lens.  When the bird uses its eyes monocularly with one of the two fovea in each eye, any prospective prey is kept in sharp focus through one end of the peculiar lens.

            "But when the kingfisher enters the water, and its 'cornea' disappears, the image of the fish is formed through another axis of the lens on the second fovea of each eye.  The fish is seen binocularly straight ahead of the beak, in good focus, and the bird is able to complete the catch!

            "The kingfisher thus has two eye systems in one — an underwater visual arrangement. . . .and an aerial survey system with high visual acuity. . . "  (See June, 1950, "Science Digest," p.16, 17).

            Who can believe that this amazingly intricate and highly ingenious system of sight, granted to the kingfisher to enable it to catch fish for food, is the result of "random mutations?"  Here is a highly complex system of sight, involving elements entirely lacking in human sight, that equips this bird for its particular station in life and enables it to keep its prey (moving swiftly in water) in sight and in focus as it dives toward it from the air above! 

            Drop a penny in a bath tub full of water.  Look at it from an angle, then reach for it, and you will miss it!  Man's eyes give a false impression of the exact location of objects under water!

            It is clear, the Creator gave each creature eyes suited to its environment and manner of life; and in most instances, the eyes He gave are so complex and vision is obtained through such an involved, complicated mechanism, one must admit this is the work of God!

            Read again the description of the wonders of the human eye, found in Chapter 11; then consider the marvels of the eyesight of the kingfisher, the owl, the dragonfly, the horseshoe crab, the lobster and the grasshopper; then ask yourself if it is reasonable to believe that such marvels came about entirely by "chance mutations" and "natural selection."  It is easier to believe that a Mergenthaler Linotype machine, with its thousands of parts and hundreds of delicate adjustments, "just happened" than to believe such a complex organ as the eye (either simple, compound or camera-type) was gradually developed through "chance mutations."  Evolution is not only merely a theory, unproved and unproveable, but also it is a very illogical theory.

            When once a person admits the presence in the Universe of an Almighty Supreme Being, who created all things, all such marvels and miracles as the eye, the brain, the wonders of the atom, the mystery of gravitation, etc., are readily accounted for.

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THE FASCINATING MARVELS OF SEX

            The primary method of multiplication of unicellular life is by simple cell division, called "binary fission" by biologists.  For some unknown reason the cell of a protozoan like the ameba splits in two and makes two identical cells.  If all higher forms of life evolved from unicellular forms of life, as evolution teaches, and these original unicellular forms of life were asexual, and cell division of these primordial protozoa invariably produced two duplicates of the original cell, how could sexless forms of unicellular life ever give rise to the higher forms with sex?

            True, mutations in sexless forms of life do occur, but they are mutations that stay within narrow bounds.  For sexless forms of life ever to evolve by mutations into sexual forms is utterly impossible,

            Mutations of organisms which do not reproduce sexually give rise to "clones," the descendants of a single individual.  A gene which mutates in a sexless individual cannot pass outside of the "clone," and thus can not be as widely distributed as mutations occurring when there is sex.

            "The spectacular evolution of plants and animals into myriads of diverse forms probably could not have taken place without the process of sexual reproduction.  The living forms that do not reproduce sexually but that carry on the life of their species by dividing, budding, or other means MAINTAIN A FAIRLY CONSTANT HEREDITY."  (The Mystery of Sex, in "Popular Science," p. 743).

            Here then evolution faces an impasse.  Evolutionists believe there was a time when there was no reproduction by sex.  They teach that reproduction by means other than sex (even though there are mutations) maintains "a fairly constant heredity" — that is, succession of life with very few changes.  HOW THEN DID "SEX" EVER GET STARTED?  Running in the deep groove of asexual uniformity, there was no chance, through natural causes, ever to get out of that groove.

            To believe that both "male" and "female" elements developed concurrently by "chance mutations" is an absurdity.  Obviously, sex — the co-ordination of two unlike elements — had to be PLANNED, and DESIGNED, and CREATED that way.

            Most cell division in unicellular protozoa, like amebas, goes on generation after generation for endless millennia without any change whatever.  In some asexual forms of life, like certain bacteria, we know there are mutants, and "varieties" develop, but the essential nature of the bacteria remains unchanged, generation after generation, and there is NO transformation from one genus into another.

            We know there are one-celled organisms that reproduce sexually — but they obviously were made that way in the beginning.  An asexual system could never, of itself, develop into a sexual system, WITHOUT THE INTERVENTION OF AN OUTSIDE GUIDING FORCE.  The fact of the presence of "sex" in life demands the work of an Intelligent Creator.

            All of life that shows "design" and "purpose" is the result of creative Intelligence.  Consider an illustration: all will admit that if one were to find a bolt with machine threads on one end, in the iron fields of Michigan, that some one had to mine the ore, smelt it, and then form that bolt and thread it.  And then to find near the bolt a threaded nut that exactly matched the size and thread size of the bolt, would give one a complete useful product.  For either a threaded bolt or a threaded nut to appear "spontaneously," without the intervention of outside intelligence would be an unheard of thing.  Every highly complicated device in nature that shows design and purpose must of necessity be the work of an Intelligent Designer.  The miracle and marvel of sex in life proves the presence of an outside Intelligence who designed and created it all.

Variety in Methods of Reproduction

            Most higher plants reproduce by fertilized seeds, involving male and female elements.  Some plants reproduce by "vegetative propagation," such as by bulbs, tubers, runners and cuttings.  Actually, most plants can be raised from stem cuttings.  Algae, fungi, mosses and ferns reproduce by means of small specialized bodies called spores.

            Algae seem to excell in the variety of methods of reproduction.  Some algae reproduce simply by cell division, others produce offspring by means of asexual spores, some others "reproduce by fusion of sexually undifferentiated gametes," and finally there are algae that produce true sex cells — eggs and sperm which unite to produce new offspring.

            The ameba reproduces by the simple process of dividing into two identical amebas.

            Yeast cells reproduce by budding.  A small bud appears on the outside of the cell; this grows and finally separates from the parent cell as a new cell.

            Reproduction in animals is either "asexual" or "sexual."  But there is a great variety in both realms.

            A starfish, if roughly handled, will divide itself — and reproduce; but if it be torn limb from limb and cast into the sea, from each limb (or ray) another starfish will result, provided that a fragment of the central disc adheres to each severed ray.

            If a small bit of the base of a sea anemone becomes separated from the parent animal, a new sea anemone will grow from this remnant!  By means of muscular contraction in the middle of its body, the sea anemone may divide itself into two parts, and each half will become a new individual.  The anemone may also reproduce sexually.  The eggs are fertilized in the sea water and develop directly into new anemones.

            Corals reproduce by "budding."  New polyps grow off the old ones.  Sexual reproduction by means of egg and sperm also occurs among corals.

            Sponges reproduce both asexually and sexually.  A new sponge will grow from almost any piece which has been broken from a living sponge.  Buds or branches may break off and grow into new individuals.  Sponges may also develop sex cells (eggs and sperms).  In some sponges both kinds of sex cells may arise in one individual; in others, they occur in different individuals, in which case the sperms are brought into the female sponges by the water currents.  The fertilized egg then develops into a flagellated larva (the young, free-living stage in the development of animals) which escapes from the parent body, swims about for a while, then settles down, becomes firmly attached, and grows into a new sponge.  Evidently God intended sponges to survive and multiply — He gave them so many ways by which to reproduce!

            Some sponges, like earthworms, are hermaphroditic, in which each individual has a complete male and female sexual apparatus.  Though each earthworm is hermaphroditic, it does not fertilize itself.

            Some forms of life reproduce by parthenogenesis, that is, having a mother but no father.  This occurs in such animals as bees, some marine worms, aphids, etc.

            All of this speaks to us of the fact that the Creator adapted the means of reproduction to the station in life of the creature.

Strange Methods of Hatching Eggs

            The female of the Giant Water Bug (about 4 inches long) cements her eggs all over the back of her husband!  They stay there until they hatch.

            Frogs use "solar energy" quite regularly in hatching their eggs.  Their hundreds of eggs are each enclosed in a transparent jelly, and the entire mass has a convex shape which acts like a magnifying glass and concentrates the sun's rays, focusing them on the embryos in the eggs.  The frog's "incubator" is run by solar heat!  Who taught the humble frog this trick?

            The female Sawfly has a highly specialized ovipositor (egg-laying organ at the end of her abdomen) with which she cuts a hole in a leaf and lays her eggs.  When the eggs hatch into larvae, they have the leaf right there for food!  This specialized organ had to be made at once, to be useful.  Slow "evolution" in no wise accounts for it.

            The eggs of spiders are "all put in one bag."  The eggs are inclosed in a silken bag which is then hung from the web, or is carried about by the female.  When the young spiders are born, they emerge from the egg sac, and look like miniature adults.  Generation after generation of spiders follow this procedure.  There is never any deviation from this among the species where it is the method used.  No one claims any "evolution" of spiders for the past million years.

            Golden-eye lacewings lay stalked eggs!  The eggs are attached to short stalks, and the ends of the stalks are securely fastened to leaves.  After they emerge as delicate, thin-winged adults.  Why would blind evolution hit on such an unhandy plan?  It is much easier just to lay eggs than to have to attach each egg to a long, thin handle, and then fasten the end of the handle to a leaf.  Remember, even if a female lacewing ages ago happened to put her eggs on stalks, the next generation would have gone back to the old method — for there is no inheritance of "acquired characters."  All hereditary changes that come are from MINOR MUTATIONS ORIGINATING IN THE SEX CELLS, and never come from any habits or abilities "acquired" during the life time by the parent.  Such a radical change from just "eggs" to "stalked eggs" (eggs fastened at the end of poles) is a vast change, and such vast mutations DO NOT OCCUR IN NATURE.  All observation indicates that viable mutations are all minor, only slight variations.  So evolution is at a loss to account for the unique system of laying and suspending eggs from stalks, to hatch them!

            Since they are born with a set instinct, generation after generation of these lacewings act as they do!

            Actually there are literally thousands of unique methods of incubating eggs.  Space does not permit listing any more, but we know that each different method is a witness for Divine Creation, showing the ingenuity of the Master Workman.

            We might mention this interesting fact: fish are generally prolific in laying eggs.  The ling fish takes no chance in being left childless; it lays 160 million eggs at one time!  But the sunfish beats this by laying 300 million!  The herring lays a mere 30,000 — but the eggs are coated with a glue-like substance so that they stick to rocks.

Devious Methods Used at Times in Sex

            In addition to the orthodox methods of conjugation and propagation of species through fertilized eggs, spores, cell mitosis, etc., that we have mentioned, there are scores of "devious routes" followed by sex that we want to call to our reader's attention.

            (1)  The Strange Case of the Bedbug

            "The male bedbug does not inject sperm into the female genital tract, but into an entirely separate structure known as Ribaga's organ, on the right side of the females body.  This organ has no connection with the ovaries.  The difficulties encountered by the sperm are increased by the fact that Ribaga's organ contains cells that eat sperm.  Nonetheless, some of the spermatozoa manage to survive and fertilize eggs.  Passing between the cells in Ribaga's organ, they enter the body cavity, travel up the walls of the females reproductive tract and ultimately reach the ovaries.

            "Normal copulation is impossible because the large, inflexible sex organ of the male cannot fit into the female genital opening.  Without the mutation responsible for the evolution of Ribaga's organ, bedbugs would have become extinct — to the advantage of the human race."  ("Unorthodox Methods of Sperm Transfer," by Lord Rothschild, "Scientific American," 11-'56).

            How illogical can the evolutionist get?  Remember, evolution teaches the "gradual" change by "random mutations" through "long periods of time."  If normal copulation is impossible — and in the case of the bedbug it is — every bedbug in the world would have died childless long before "evolution" got around to establishing this devious sex route followed by the bedbug.  Say it took a million years to develop "Ribaga's organ."  Every bedbug in the world would have perished — and even their memory would have been long lost in the shadows if antiquity — while waiting, patiently waiting, for this organ to "evolve."

            Say folks — since Evolution has taken to itself the credit for "evolving" Ribaga's organ, and since it is so anxious to achieve something, why don't we forget logic for the time being, and let it have the credit for "saving bedbugs for the world!"

            Seriously, all logical thinkers can see that there has been imposed a HANDICAP on the pesky little bedbugs.  Though God pronounced a judgment on the world — and this judgment is on nature also (see Genesis 3:17-19;  Romans 8:20-22) — apparently He in mercy set limits to that judgment, and, in the case of the bedbug, He made it difficult for them to propagate.  HANDICAPS are to be seen everywhere in nature; and these "Handicaps" are a witness for the fact of Divine Intervention in life on earth.  If "survival of the fittest" were the law of nature, the world would have been destroyed by pests or monsters ages ago;  but the Creator so balanced all life that the evil that are strong would not prevail, and completely dominate and ruin His creation.

            Some sponges, and spiders, lobsters and leeches use a roundabout method to achieve copulation. (See Lord Rothschild's article referred to above).  And each is a distinctive witness for Creation and against evolution.

            (2)  The Curious Behavior of the Stickleback

            Thousands of species of animals — birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and insects — go through a distinctive courtship routine, prompted and established in pattern by unchanging INSTINCT.  As an example of this phenomenon we quote from an article by Prof. N. Tinbergen (zoologist).

            "The sex life of the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is a complicated pattern, purely instinctive and automatic, which can be observed. . . .at will.  The mating cycle follows an unvarying ritual.

            "First each male leaves the school of fish and stakes out a territory for itself, from which it will drive any intruder. . . .

            "Then it builds a nest.  It digs a shallow pit, piles in a heap of weeds, coats the material with a sticky substance, and shapes the weedy mass into a mound with its snout.  It then bores a tunnel in the mound by wriggling through it.  The tunnel, slightly shorter than an adult fish, is the nest.

            "Having finished the nest, the male suddenly changes color — from an inconspicuous gray to a bright red and a bluish white."

            "In this colorful, conspicuous dress the male at once begins to court females.  He performs a zigzag dance before them until a female takes notice.  He then swims toward the nest, and she follows.  She enters the nest. . . .and lays her eggs. . . .and slips out of the nest.  He then glides in quickly to fertilize the clutch.

            "One male may escort three, four or even five females through the nest, fertilizing each patch of eggs in turn.  Then his mating impulse subsides, his color darkens.  Now he guards the nest from predators and 'fans' water over the eggs to enrich their supply of oxygen.  This he does daily until the eggs hatch.  For a day or so after the young emerge the father keeps the brood together.  But soon the young sticklebacks become independent and associate with the young of other broods." (Condensed from "The Curious Behaviour of the Stickleback," by N. Tinbergen; "Scientific American," 12-'52).

            It is safe to say that almost all life on earth — below the level of mankind — is guided largely by INSTINCT.  Instinct creates behaviour patterns like that given above; instinct teaches a bird how to build its particular type of nest; instinct teaches the hunting wasp how to paralyze but not kill the caterpillar; instinct teaches the bee how to make the honeycomb.  Since instinct enables an animal to exhibit intelligence in actions, without having actual intelligence, instinct must be a gift of the Creator to His creatures.  The fact that all life is largely guided by God-given INSTINCT is one of the most powerful of all arguments in favor of creation.  There is no proof anywhere for the evolution of instinct.  It is unchanging.  Instincts can not be evolved gradually.

            (3)  Dandelions Have Said Good-bye to Sex

            Science Digest (May, 1957) had an interesting article on this theme, "Dandelions Have Said Good-bye to Sex," by Joseph Wood Krutch.  Dandelions are one of the "highest" of all plants, and as a race, dandelions are "prospering and inheriting the earth."

            "But in this most recent. . . .of all plant groups, the flower is. . . .devolving rather than evolving.  Some plants have returned to a more primitive form of sexuality. . . .but the dandelion is one of the very few plants that has gone these other (plants) one better (or worse); it has abandoned sex entirely.  Its ovaries are not fertilized by pollen from a stamen in the same flower.  They are not fertilized at all.  No sexual process takes place.  Every seed and therefore every new generation is the product of a virgin birth.  For good or ill, dandelions have said good-bye to sex.

            "Sexuality made the dandelion what it is.  The abandonment of sexuality will keep it almost precisely that. . . .If it lasts for ANOTHER HUNDRED MILLION YEARS IT WILL. . . .'IMPROVE' NOT AT ALL."

            And so God has chosen the humble dandelion — as well as the bedbug — to be one of His witnesses!  Read the above paragraphs again, and see this amazing confession:  Without sex, involving the interchange of genes from both parents, there is little prospect of any change.  Having "abandoned sex," they say, "the dandelion will remain unchanged for the next hundred million years."  But since sexual reproduction is NOT the original method of reproduction, say the evolutionists, but simple cell division is, we know that evolution is a vain theory, for if there was a time when there was no sex, that time gave little hope of transmutation from one genus into another, even though minor mutations developed.  It is "sex" that gave the terrific drive to mutations!  A SEXLESS WORLD, we are told, is a world that has little hope of ever changing.  Evolutionists admit that in the world that existed before "sex" there was little possibility of "evolution" — so slight, in fact, that a "sexless dandelion" has no chance to improve or evolve in the next 100 million years!  HOW THEN DID THAT PRIMEVAL WORLD EVER GET OUT OF ITS SEXLESS RUT?

            This is not the only instance in which evolutionists are thoroughly confused and have to resort to such statements as "they are devolving, not evolving."  We have read similar confessions many times.  The truth is, the facts of nature when viewed as a whole and in detail confute the theories of evolution.

            (4)  It is Sex that made the Midwife Toad Famous!

            "Most frogs and toads which live on land return to the water when mating time comes, for the eggs have to hatch in water for the sake of the tadpole stage.  But the midwife toad does not return to the water for mating.  This takes place on land, and while it goes on the male, using his hind legs, literally pulls the eggs out of the body of the female.  The eggs form a long string, about 30 inches in length, consisting of a jelly-like substance in which the eggs are imbedded at regular intervals.  The male loops this string of eggs around his hind legs. . . .He then digs himself a hole in moist sand, or soil, which he does with great skill and very fast.  There he sits with the egg string, waiting patiently while the eggs incubate.  After waiting a few weeks, the male finds water, jumps in and starts swimming  very energetically.  This breaks the eggs membranes and the tiny tadpoles scatter in all directions."  (Salamanders and Other Wonders, pages 29, 30).

            Darwins Frog (Shinoderma darwinii) presents an even more striking oddity.  The male has modified vocal sacs which he converts into receptacles for the eggs of his mate!  The pouch, which becomes an extensive chamber under the body is entered by two channels on the floor of the mouth, and into this — "the most curious of all nurseries in terrestrial animal life" — the eggs are received.  There the dozen or so young are born and they stay there until they pass through the larval stage!  This father is taking no chances in having his youngsters (tadpoles) eaten!  Here again evolution is dumb and helpless; it has no adequate explanation for this phenomenon.  The only possible answer is, GOD MADE IT SO; and He assured the continuance of this odd life cycle by impressing on the hereditary genes the stamp of this odd body and weird manner of rearing young.  What croaking frog would wish such a task as this on himself?

            It is our conviction that the Creator injected such reversals of the general trend in nature to demonstrate the fact of His handiwork.  Established by inflexible instinct, the male midwife toad goes through this trying procedure generation after generation, while his wife enjoys herself!  The poor male would be the first one to grab onto some stray, "chance mutation,"  to get out of his slavery to the maternity ward — but no luck.  In this instance, as in thousands like it, evolution explains nothing; all it does is give us a confused babble of meaningless words.

            (5)  The Curious Life Process of the Alpine Salamander

            "The Alpine Salamander, living from 3,000 to 10,000 feet up the slopes of the Alps, produces her young alive, and that by the most curious process yet observed.  Of 50 eggs which the oviducts may contain only two are fertile.  When the two tadpoles emerge from the eggs, they are not extruded from the parent body, but are nourished upon the substance of the remaining 48 eggs," so there in the mother's body the twins undergo their metamorphosis, protected and with abundant food, and emerge, like their parents, only smaller!

            Here is an amazing adaptation to climate that permits the Alpine salamander to live and reproduce in conditions normally adverse to salamanders.  Instead of spending their tadpole stage out of doors, as other salamanders do, these little ones are fed from a wellstocked pantry, and are brought through their tadpole stage right in the protection and coziness of the mother's body!  To believe that this adaptation happened through a chance mutation, or "random changes," millions of years ago, and through a period of millions of years, is more than we can accept — and we'll tell you why:  In the course of those millions of years, we are told by geologists, the alpine areas went through several radical climatic changes from ice age, to a warm climate and back again to another ice age, and then a return to a warm climate!  When would evolution have time enough, with so many climactic changes, to perform its wonders?  When just about ready for a cold climate, the weather would change — and all the "mutations" for clod weather would be lost!  Poor, confused Evolution would surely get frustrated and quit trying.

            (6)  The Butterfly:  A Witness Against Evolution

            "Human genius has never invented anything lovelier than a butterfly, nor anything so wonderful."

            In all nature one can scarcely find anything more beautiful than the butterflies!  But before a butterfly becomes an adult, it must go through a complete metamorphosis in four stages: egg, larva (worm or caterpillar stage), pupa (or chrysalis), and then the adult butterfly.  Why such a roundabout path to produce a butterfly?  If unguided nature or evolution were doing it, according to Darwin's theory of "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest" the impractical devious route would not have a chance.  The butterfly would hatch directly from the egg, as would seem to be the normal route.  Unguided evolution in a billion years could not even think up such an involved plan as "complete metamorphosis" — much less put it into working order.

            Could it be that God, the Master Teacher, so designed the life cycle of the butterfly to teach us a lesson?  Undoubtedly, spiritual and moral truths are illustrated in nature — and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly is an obvious lesson.  If the grovelling, repulsive, greedy, earth-bound caterpillar pictures man in his lowly, fallen estate, then the transformation into the butterfly is a lesson in the need and reality of the new birth (see John 3:3, 5, 7).  And the butterfly, released from its cocoon, flying heavenward, is a picturesque display of glory, speaking of the glory of the coming resurrection for the saved of earth (1 Corinthians 15:42-44;  Philippians 3:21).

One student, writing of this miracle of metamorphosis, says,

            "The metamorphosis of the butterfly cannot be reasonably explained by any mechanical theory of evolution.  The idea that this mysterious process by which a certain form of animal is changed comparatively suddenly into something entirely different, and which goes on with undeviating regularity generation after generation, could have come about by the selection of chance variations or mutations, without plan and without directing force is so contrary to intelligence and so basically unscientific that it cannot be supported.  It is manifestly absurd, and the more one considers the process of metamorphosis the more obvious it becomes that no theory of 'fortuitous variations' large or small can explain it."  (Evolution: the Unproven Hypothesis; page 48).

            The life story of the butterfly begins with the tiny egg which the butterfly deposits upon a branch.  And, mysterious miracle, — each kind of butterfly seems to prefer its own special kind of plant or tree.  No one knows why.  Another miracle: the eggs "are as exquisitely beautiful as gems — lustrous as pearls, more delicate than hand-wrought jewels.  They are fluted, ribbed, patterned in a score of different ways — perfect as works of art, yet contrived with marvelous skill for the admission of the fertilizing substance.  The material of which the eggs are made also provides the larvae with their first meal after they have hatched from the shells."  Most anyone can see that the "design" and beauty in these eggs is the work of the Master Artist, the Creator whose works are perfect!

            "The grown-up insect goes back to the plant or tree trunk on which it was nurtured in its early life.  This is wonderful.  No moth or butterfly eats solid food (though some butterflies drink nectar); some can not even take moisture.  Yet all lay their eggs on a substance which will be cradle and larder to the caterpillars into which those eggs will hatch! . . .Generally (with a few exceptions) there is one food, and one only, for a species.  If that fails, the caterpillar will die in the midst of abundance, starving while caterpillars of other species are flourishing.  the parents, to which solid food is not necessary, find it without fail for their offspring which the parents may never live to see. . . .Yet Nature, by some magic, guides the parent to the right tree, bush or weed.  There, on the very substance essential to the creature yet unborn, the egg is laid.  There is no more perfect example in the world of unerring instinct."

            Evolution is not equal to a feat like that!  To put such ability in an insect is the work of Infinite Intelligence.

Another feature about the egg laying is its great variety.

            "The eggs may be laid singly, in clusters or in masses. . . .In some species they hatch in a number of days, in others the egg is buried underground or covered with a coat of varnish, and survives the winter, hatching the following spring."

            Surely, this speaks of the Great Designer, who loves variety in His creative handiwork.

            If the eggs are interesting, the career of the caterpillar till it becomes an adult butterfly is even more so.  Having eaten the shells of the eggs from which they emerge, caterpillars begin a "campaign of gorging" and almost burst with food!

            The larva of Polyphemus (the American silkworm) in its two-months career actually consumes 86,000 times its own weight when first hatched!  The caterpillar of the Goat-moth reaches a weight 72,000 times as great as its weight when first hatched!

            The larva of the monarch butterfly is about an eighth of an inch long when it is  first born.  Soon it sheds its skin in the first of four molts.  In about two weeks it is full grown, and it then begins preparation for a major change in its way of life.

            Seeking a convenient leaf or stem, he proceeds to spin a tough, flat button of silk.  This amazing feat is done by means of a liquid secretion of glands in his head.  The secretion hardens into a thread when it is squeezed out into the air from an opening on the lower lip.  How can one account for the fact that he not only possesses a chemical factory, but also he is an

            "architect and designs a house, though he has never lived in one before and has never seen one?  His first attempt follows a pattern that is standard dwelling for all caterpillars of his variety, and is perfect for its purpose!"  He is not only an architect and a builder; he is an interior decorator and a water-proofer as well.  And he builds for himself a habitation "that the genius of man cannot duplicate."

       There are many varieties of moths and butterflies and many varieties of patterns of life followed by them.  For example, the "Leaf-rollers" (moths) cement together two edges of one leaf, or two different leaves, and "in the little room thus formed make their home, snugly furnished with a couch of web spun from their silk gland."

            There is a poisonous species of caterpillar (from the Puss-moth larva), that spit out their poison a considerable distance, reminding one of a little spitting Cobra.

            The Wooly Bears (larvae of moths) weave their own (but now useless) hairs into their silken cocoons; the caterpillars of the Dicranura chew such hard materials as wood and even sandstone, and mix that with their silk!  Most wonderful of all: an African moth (Nyctemera group) wraps itself merely in a cloak of bubbles that it blows up and then goes to sleep!  Practical thinkers know there is an Intelligent Creator behind such marvels.

            Lazy days pass in the caterpillar's pupal house.  There the chrysalis takes its final shape, and the outer skin hardens.  Within this dry shell the organs of the caterpillar are dissolved; special organs are generated (in the apparently lifeless body) whose function is to devour the organs which once worked for the caterpillar, and reduce them to a pulp — a seemingly formless glob, "a kind of soup."  A miracle takes place!

            "Nothing remains unchanged, save perhaps its system of breathing.  Jaws, claws, claspers, pro-legs, digestive system, even the very shape — all disappear.  Then the shapes of the head, legs and thorax of the butterfly gradually appear upon the chrysalis case, and the first rough draft of the coming butterfly is dimly seen on the horny case of the chitin."

            The hour arrives for the insect to wake up and come out of its chrysalis.  At this time it voids a quantity of a rather corrosive liquid which softens and partly dissolves the silk at one end of the chrysalis.  Through the opening thus formed the butterfly emerges.  The ugly grub has vanished; and in its place is a lovely winged butterfly as colorful as a flower, and in the case of the Monarch butterfly, capable of winging its way across an ocean!  When it emerges, it is "resurrected" — full grown — and does not have to grow up like a baby chick.  There is no growth thereafter for either moths or butterflies, whether it be the tiny moths of the leaf-mining group, or the giant Atlas moths of Africa, which have a wing span of nearly a foot.

            We must call attention to one more miracle:  the subtle beauty of the butterfly's wings.  Their beauty is proverbial.

            One writer says, "Most butterflies appear like animated pieces of art with an amazing combination of small-patch color schemes."  Another says, "The most striking thing is the way the colors shift and vary with every change in the angle of the light or of the eye of the viewer."  (Nature's Wonders; page 99).

            Another writer, describing a certain gorgeous butterfly, says, "It shows a play of iridescent colors that can hardly be matched in jewel-like tones by any other one thing."  We will explain why the colors of many butterflies are iridescent.

            Under a grant from the Radio Corporation of America, Drs. T. F. Anderson and A. Glenn Richards, Jr., studied the brilliant blue tropical butterfly (Morpho cypris), which is prized as a decoration for coffee trays and the like.  They used the electron microscope which can "see" objects smaller than a wavelength of light.  They discovered this incredible phenomenon:

            "There is a three-dimensional architecture on each wing scale.  The wings are covered with these minute scales that overlap much as a roof is covered with shingles.  The surfaces of these scales are covered with perfect structures — rows upon rows of them that look like long narrow skyscrapers on arching supports!  Imagine each 'skyscraper' to be made of a transparent material like glass and the distance between reflecting floors to be half a wavelength of blue light!  Each of these scales reflects blue light and no other.  These 'skyscrapers' have 'floors' only 1/100,000 of an inch apart.  this is NOT guesswork; pictures taken with the electron microscope are so sharp that details as small as three-ten millionths of an inch can be seen in the 'walls' of the 'skyscrapers.' (And remember, these 'skyscrapers' are but minute portions of the infinitestimal scales on the wings of a butterfly!).  These 'details' may well be the molecule-sized 'bricks' of which these 'skyscraper' structures on the wing scales are built.  But how these 'bricks' make the skyscrapers' is still an unsolved mystery."

            Can you beat that for miracle in the unseen world of nature!  The color in a butterfly's wings is not from pigment, but from the reflected light from these transparent wing scales, made to reflect different colors according to the size of the "skyscraper" arrangement on each wing, or on each part of each wing.  This is amazing beyond description, and is the fitting work of an infinitely wise, all powerful Creator.  Such a wing could no more develop through the so-called evolutionary processes, by "random changes," than that a dog could jump to the moon.  Let us be honest; give the Creator the credit due Him.

The Testimony of a Great Scientist

            A German biologist Richard Goldschmidt, "set himself the task of proving by laboratory research what Charles Darwin had assumed to be true."  He became an authority on the gypsy moth (Lymantria), following about the same line of work on it that others have done with the fruit fly (Drosophila).  Goldschmidt became director of the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and recently he has been head of the department of Zoology in the University of California. (He is now deceased).  In his book, The Material Basis of Evolution (Yale University Press), he tells of his disappointment in not being able to verify the theory.

            He argues that there are "large species . . . which are distinct from one another, and separated from one another by 'bridgeless gaps' with no transitions from one to another (page 29).  Within each of these groups varied changes may occur, but such changes never amount to enough to form a distinct different kind, and we have no scientific knowledge that new species have been formed in this way."  (Boldface type ours).

            This witness is all the more valuable for Professor Goldschmidt still believed in organic evolution, "somehow."  But being an honest man, he gave as his considered judgment that he could find no scientific evidence for belief in evolution.

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MORE ABOUT "SPECIALIZED ORGANS"

            Many times in this book we have pointed out the miracle of "specialized organs," organs created for a special function.  Again and again we have called attention to the fact that ALL SPECIALIZED ORGANS HAVE TO BE PERFECT TO WORK — and that a partly developed of partly formed "special organ" is useless.  Hence we KNOW that all specialized organs came into existence AT ONCE, IN THEIR COMPLETED, PERFECT FORM; otherwise they would not function properly.

            Actually, the world around us is full of wonders, including many strange and fascinating specialized organs.  One author says,

            "Artists in the Middle Ages painted snakes — mostly the well-known 'sea-monsters' — as some kind of monstrous (animal).  Today we smile at these grotesque conceptions. . . .Science has done away with all these fantasies and replaced them by real creatures, the complexity of whose body structure FAR EXCEEDS THAT OF THE STRANGE CREATURES OF IMAGINATION."  ( Reptile Life).

            Let us examine some of these strange creatures.

            The Lionfish (Pterois radiata) is a strange fish that lurks on coral shelves, 130 feet below the surface of the ocean.  It has long, singular bristling spines that inject a potent poison into any living thing that touches them.  The human victim experiences excruciating pain, if his arm or leg is pierced by one or more of these spines.  No antidote is known.  Whatever possessed evolution to turn out such a frightful creature?  The evolutionist might counter with, "why accuse a benevolent Creator of making such a repelling, poison-inflicting creature?  The answer is: Nature is full of symbols of evil as well as good.  There are poisonous snakes as well as milk cows.  As nature is a reflection of a fallen, sin-cursed world, much that is evil and injurious is in evidence — to teach men moral lessons.  Poison in nature, with its lethal consequences, is a picture of sin and it deadly consequences.  It is to be avoided.

            Aside from the reason why there is such a creature as the death-dealing Lionfish, we know of no link of intermediary forms that lead up to the lionfish.

            The Lungfish has been described as "the strangest fish in the world."  In South America and in Africa they live in stagnant pools that dry up in the rainless season.  In such a situation, fish that breath with gills die.  But the creator made a fish for just such an emergency.  When the weather dries up the pool, the lungfish digs into the ground, curls up comfortably, and goes to sleep after enveloping itself in a sort of mucilage cocoon!  It gets its air through a hole that extends to the surface of the ground.  And so it sleeps on through the dry season; and when the spring rains fill the pool again, the water melts the cocoon, and releases the lungfish to swim around in the pond!  The Darwinian theory of "natural selection" falls down completely here, for the first dry season for a normal fish would KILL IT when the pond dried.  Natural selection cannot reach into the execution chamber of a dry pond and save even one fish that is not FROM THE BEGINNING equipped for such an emergency as is the lungfish.  CREATION is the only logical answer to such a strange creature as the lungfish.

The South American Sloth is a singular quadruped.

            "Though all other quadrupeds rest on the ground, this singular animal is destined by nature to be produced, to live, and to die in the trees.  He has no soles to his feet, and he is ill at ease when he tries to move on the ground.  He spends most of his life hanging upside down from the limb of a tree!  In fact, he spends his whole life in trees and never leaves them but through force or by accident.  And what is more extraordinary, the sloth rests not UPON the branches or limbs, like the squirrel or monkey, but UNDER them!  He moves suspended from the branch, he rests suspended from it, he sleeps suspended from it.  To enable him to do this HE MUST HAVE A VERY DIFFERENT (PHYSICAL)  FORMATION FROM THAT OF ANY OTHER KNOW QUADRUPED. . . .When his form and anatomy are attentively considered, it is evident that the sloth cannot be at ease in any situation where his body is not suspended, as from a limb of a tree."  (Charles Waterton).

            How can even the most imaginative evolutionist possibly come up with an explanation of how the sloth got its entirely different body for its radically different manner of life?  He (the Creator) "hath given it a body as it hath pleased Him."

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