The Adam of Genesis 283 



which God found it necessary to pile the hills. 

 Take away from us the divine fatherhood and 

 human brotherhood, and every man would be to 

 every other man a rapacious enemy. Better Saturn, 

 who appeased his appetite by devouring his chil- 

 dren, than the god of the traditional theologians, 

 who consigns them to endless torture for the grati- 

 fication of his passion for personal glory. Saturn 

 was a beast; this last conception is of a demon. 

 The worst is always proximate to the best in morals 

 and religion, as extremes are proximate in mathe- 

 matics. It was not till Christianity, in its benign 

 and heavenly glory, rose upon the world, that 

 paganism itself paled into morning light when com- 

 pared with the rayless and infinite abysm of divine 

 iniquity which traditional theologians presented as 

 representing the character of Our Father in Heaven, 

 Libel therein did its worst, and never can be 

 exceeded. 



Nay, verily, that paternal voice pursues every 

 child of Adam from the cradle to the grave : "Where 

 art thou, Adam? What doest thou? Return to me, 

 my child. " The Divine Father has never forgotten 

 the hour or the trysting-place where, as the Edenic 

 sun bends low, and the shadows of the night fall 

 upon the world, he desires to meet and commune 

 with his children. With magnificent prophetic per- 

 ception the divine bard witnessed the rejoicing of 

 the starry ranks over the birth of a new order of 

 the sons of God, They had long, in silent wonder, 



