The Adam of Genesis 285 



He had no clothing, but on arriving at manhood 

 began to provide himself with it. This was his first 

 step forward into the panoply of a man. He had 

 few tools — his life in Eden not requiring therti. 

 The representation is that bountiful nature supplied 

 him with all that he had learned to desire; and that 

 he was as happy as he was innocent of the knowl- 

 edge of civilization and its sins. It is probable 

 that his first great discovery was of the use of fire — 

 his first conquest over the elemental forces of 

 nature; and in all the inventions and discoveries 

 of man since, there was none which approached this 

 in importance. It is to-day the master discovery of 

 time. The garden eastward in Eden lay in the 

 poet's zone. The dwellers there knew what were 

 the treasures of the hail and the snow. The rain is 

 for the refreshment of the plants and the replen- 

 ishment of springs and streams; but the hail and 

 the snow and the biting north wind are for the nur- 

 ture of mankind. True manhood is not a plant of 

 the tropics, where the native sleeps at the foot of 

 the artocarpus tree, and wakens to eat of the fallen 

 fruit. Man to come to manhood must fight, like 

 Hiawatha, with Kwasind. He must turn upon the 

 assailing storm and defy it. He must wrest his 

 rights from nature during her winter reign of frown 

 and austerity. If his children are not to perish, 

 and his tribe to become extinct, he must shelter 

 them in a home. It required the frost and the 

 storm to make the family, and it requires the family 



