440 
LEGENDARY ACCOUNTS 01 ADAM. 
Hebron ; others on Mount Calvary. Some are of opinion that he died 
on the very spot were Jerusalem was afterwards built, and was buried 
on the place where Christ suffered, so that his bones might be sprink- 
led with the Saviour’s blood ! ! ! 
It would be endless to relate all the whims that have been written on 
this subject, but we cannot omit the relations of Madam Bourignon, 
concerning Adam, which are peculiarly marvellous. According to this 
lady, Adam, before his fall, possessed in himself the principles 
of both sexes, and she affirms that he actually did produce a son 
before the creation of Eve, a perfect being like himself, and that this 
perfect being was, after the fall, associated with the Deity, and became 
the human nature of our Saviour ! 
She even imagined, that, in an ecstasy, she saw the figure of Adam 
before he fell, with the manner how, by himself, he was capable of 
procreating other men. “ God,” says she, “ represented to my mind 
the beauty of the first world, and the manner how he had drawn it 
from the chaos; every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth 
light and ineffable glory. The body of Adam was purer and more 
transparent than crystal, and vastly fleet ; through this body was seen 
vessels and rivulets of light, which penetrated from the inward to the 
outward parts, through all his pores. In some vessels ran fluids of 
all kinds and colours, vastly bright, and quite diaphanous. The most 
ravishing harmony arose from every motion ; and nothing resisted or 
could anrioy him. His stature was taller than the present race of men; 
his hair was short, curled, and of a colour inclining to black ; his upper 
lip covered with short hair, and he was fashioned as our bodies will be 
in the life eternal, W'hich I know not whether I dare reveal. In that 
region, the nose w^as formed after the manner of a face, w hich diffused 
the most delicious fragrancy and perfumes, whence also men were 
to issue ; all which principles w'ere inherent in him. 
“Woman w'as formed by taking out of Adam’s sides the vessels that 
contained the above principles, which she still possesses, as is dis- 
covered by anatomists.” 
After retailing so many incredible stories and whimsical fancies, 
respecting our first progenitor, no reader of sensibility will be dis- 
pleased, that we add a few lines respecting the probable cause of his 
fall. Of ail the conjectures that have been formed, with regard to 
the motives that influenced him to partake of the forbidden fruit, 
none appears more probable than that of Milton, when he supposes 
that it proceeded from his excessive love for his wife, which made 
him willing to embrace certain death along w ith her, rather than live, 
even in paradise, without her. Indeed, it is hardly to be accounted 
for upon any other principle, that a being, in a state of innocence and 
perfection, who had received prohibition personally from his Creator, 
and who had such frequent and immediate communication with the 
Deity, could have been prevailed on to disobey a command so express, 
and incur a punishment so great as w as threatened, if he had not been 
under the irresistible impulse of an extreme degree of the purest and 
best of human passions, accompanied wdth the distracting thought of 
for ever losing the beloved object of his affections, by death aad 
annihilation. 
