270 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



So, also, our Aryan kindred of India depicted the 

 blessedness of men under the earliest Manu — and 

 the Persians the reign of their creator-God Ahura- 

 madz before the devil-god Ahiram appeared; and 

 the Semite saw Paradise and man emerge in celes- 

 tial beauty when the Divine Spirit brooded upon 

 chaos. The periods of these ages of gold varied 

 among the various peoples. The eastern Aryans 

 gave a million of years to theirs, the Hebrew Tal- 

 mudists only seven, while the grim Saint Augustine, 

 in his parsimony of joy, would allow Adam and 

 Eve only six years of Eden, and thus economized 

 one year to be added to the already over-ample sum 

 of human misery, in the conservation of which he 

 was largely interested. 



Archaeology has in recent years brought large 

 light to the study of the story of Adam — its origins, 

 variations, and parallels. Those lost libraries of 

 clay and stone have lain buried for two and a half 

 thousand years. They were inscribed in unknown 

 characters, and recorded the words of unknown 

 tongues. They were as dead and apparently as 

 unrestorable as the scattered dust of lips that had 

 last spoken them. It was a miracle of perseverance, 

 acumen, and learning — a breathing upon dry frag- 

 ments of bones, causing them to arise, lift the 

 curtains of oblivion, and discourse to us of a litera- 

 ture and civilization of which history had small 

 suspicion. 



There has been, in recent years, much polemic 



