11 



can believe anything, therefore there is no hope for these unfortunates, 

 whatever clianres (here may be for others. 



As the expression of the infantile imagination of primitive man, after 

 emerging from his brute ancestry, and commencing to exercise morn 

 fully his reasoning faculties, these fables are easily understood ; but as 

 the writings of men who had been inspired by the almighty power to 

 record a true account of the origin of nature and man for the use of 

 others, they must be at once rejected by all reasonable and thoughtful 

 people as gross absurdities. We can easily understand how the mind 

 of primitive man pondered over the strange mixture of good and evil 

 in the world, just as the awakening mind of a child would do to day ; 

 how the mystery would be explained by the analogy of the celestial 

 movements ; and how, as the result of the infantile reasoning, the good 

 principle became associated with the mental conception of a venerable 

 old gentleman, who planted a garden, and performed the principle part 

 in the drama just described from the third chapter of Genesis. 



The whole story bears the strongest marks of being the production 

 of an infantile intellect. The simple manner in which the writer tells 

 us that the man and woman sewed fig leaves together and made aprons 

 for themselves is sullicicnt evidence of this. We cannot believe that 

 Adam and Eve went through the many processes necessary for the 

 production of the needles and thread, with which to sew their leaves 

 together. Then the conversation between god, as he took his stroll in 

 the garden in the cool of the evening, and Adam and Eve, is just what 

 we should expect from the crude imaginations of our early ancestors ; 

 as also is the manner in which the man placed the blame on the woman, 

 and she in her turn upon the serpent. The curse, too, is precisely in 

 the same style ; first the serpent, then the woman, afterwards the man, 

 and lasty the earth itself being brought under the divine anathema. 

 No less apparent is the absurdity of the writer stating that Adam called 

 his wife Eve "because she was tho mother of all living," when there 

 were then no other human beings in \istenro ; and declaring that god 

 made coats and breeches (see " Breeches Bible") of skins, when as yel 

 death had not entered in'o the world. Such fables cannot be accepted 

 as true history by tho intellect of the nineteenth century. 



That we suffer for the sins of our fathers is unfortunately too true ; 

 but that we shall eternally iVi/./le for tham I declare, without the least 



