Darwin requires us to disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A leading journal representing the same church took pains to show the evolution theory to be as contrary to the explicit declarations of the New Testament as to those of the Old, and said: "If we have all, men and monkeys, oysters and eagles, developed from an original germ, then is St.Paul's grand deliverance--'All flesh is not the same flesh; there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds'-- untrue." Another echo came from Australia, where Dr.Perry, Lord Bishop of Melbourne, in a most bitter book on Science and the Bible, declared that the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and Huxley is "to produce in their readers a disbelief of the Bible." Nor was the older branch of the Church to be left behind in this chorus.
Bayma, in the Catholic World, declared, "Mr.Darwin is, we have reason to believe, the mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that infidel clique whose well-known object is to do away with all idea of a God." Worthy of especial note as showing the determination of the theological side at that period was the foundation of sacro-scientific organizations to combat the new ideas.

First to be noted is the "Academia," planned by Cardinal Wiseman.

In a circular letter the cardinal, usually so moderate and just, sounded an alarm and summed up by saying, "Now it is for the Church, which alone possesses divine certainty and divine discernment, to place itself at once in the front of a movement which threatens even the fragmentary remains of Christian belief in England." The necessary permission was obtained from Rome, the Academia was founded, and the "divine discernment" of the Church was seen in the utterances which came from it, such as those of Cardinal Manning, which every thoughtful Catholic would now desire to recall, and in the diatribes of Dr.Laing, which only aroused laughter on all sides.

A similar effort was seen in Protestant quarters; the "Victoria institute" was created, and perhaps the most noted utterance which ever came from it was the declaration of its vice-president, the Rev.Walter Mitchell, that "Darwinism endeavours to dethrone God."(23) (23) For Wilberforce's article, see Quarterly Review, July, 1860.

For the reply of Huxley to the bishop's speech I have relied on the account given in Quatrefages, who had it from Carpenter; a somewhat different version is given in the Life and Letters of Darwin.