Kingsley and Darwin. From Wikipedia, I learn that Charles Kingsley, a well-known Victorian evangelical pastor, was an enthusiast for Darwin's theory of evolution--- at at least in Darwin's first book. The Origin of Species. (Click here to read more.)

He was sympathetic to the idea of evolution, and was one of the first to praise Darwin's book. He had been sent an advance review copy and in his response of 18 November 1859 (four days before the book went on sale) stated that he had "long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species."[2]. Darwin added an edited version of Kingsley's closing remarks to the next edition of his book, stating that "A celebrated author and divine has written to me that 'he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws '." [3]

I just realized that the title of Darwin's book is about the weakest part of his theory. He explains the spread of species, and the adaptation of species by natural selection, but the "origin of species"? At a minimum, that needs the idea of mutations introduced later, and even that does not work very well, it seems.