In this morning’s Templeton classes, Dame Gillian Beer, a Darwin scholar and emeritus Cambridge professor, described the scandal caused by the publication of the Origin of Species. Many immediately saw this as a threat to religion, especially the notion that we’re all part of a grand family, the monkeys cousins of man.
Interestingly, though, Charles Kingsley, a prominent English scholar, wrote him a letter November 1859 saying the opposite:

“I have gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that he created primal forms capable of self development… as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which he himself had made. I question whether the former be not the loftier thought.”

In other words, the theory that God had to perfect his own work with constant minor adjustments implies a lack of perfection in the first attempt. On the other hand, if the process itself leads toward natural improvement, or even perfection, than the process itself is perfect, and worthy of a great God.
Dame Beer noted that when another correspondent made a similar point, Darwin “had a great relief” that his theory could co-exist with some form of Theism. Whether that relief was due to political factors — the hope that he would not be viewed as the enemy of all religion – or a lingering desire to find a theology that comported with his scientific theories, she did not know.