出国留学首选一诺留学

　　听力文本

　　Good morning. I live just down the lane from WaltonHall, the home of the 19th century naturalist andexplorer, Charles Waterton. He had several visitsfrom Charles Darwin, following his epic voyage onthe Beagle and whist he was writing his book “OnThe Origin of Species” whose theory of evolutionwas to rock the worlds of science and religion. The two men had much in common when it cameto science, but not when it came to religion. Waterton was a devout Roman Catholic, Darwin, itwas thought was an agnostic. There were good reason for believing this for late in his life hewrote to a prominent atheist who was perhaps seeking his support, “It has always been myobject to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science.”

　　But as many of us learned this week that wasn’t to remain strictly true. On Monday afternoonin New York, a brief letter hand written by Darwin was auctioned for almost 200 thousanddollars. It was penned just a month after his letter to the atheist, but was sharper in tone andcontent. It was sent to a young barrister, who was obviously a keen Christian and was worriedthat if he derived pleasure in reading Darwin’s books he might lose his faith. He’d written, “I askyou to give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to the question ‘Do you believe in the New Testament?”Darwin replied, “Dear Sir, I am sorry to have to inform you that I do not believe in the Bible asa divine revelation and therefore not in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Yours faithfully”.

　　Why did the young barrister’s letter so get under Darwin’s skin that he broke with a life-time ofreticence on matters of religion? We will probably never know, but clues can perhaps be foundin other letters which he wrote. When he and his wife Emma settled in Down in Kent Darwincorrespondence shows that he made great friends with the local vicar and Darwin would doeverything to support his local church except worship there. He would accompany his wifeand family to the church gates, and then go for a thoughtful walk whilst they went toworship. But with the vicar he planned an educational and benevolent trust for the parishand became its very active treasurer.

　　Then the vicar left and a keen new curate arrived, who was a far more yes, or no, person. Thecurate made local life so difficult for Darwin that he withdrew from the educational and carestructure which he’d created.

　　It wouldn’t surprise me if the letter from the enthusiastic Christian lawyer reminded Darwin ofhis treatment by the Christian curate some years earlier and he took to his pen. The presshave interpreted the letter as evidence of Darwin’s atheism, but I don’t necessarily think thatthat’s the case. What Darwin certainly didn’t believe was that a loving God would allow non-believers to burn eternally in hell fire. I agree with him.