as is alleged to have supervened on the earth soon after the introduction of the human race; that, on the contrary, the earth seems never before to have been so fit for human habitation and use as it has been since that time; that for untold ages, before and while the saurian and megatherian monsters lived, man could not have existed upon its surface at all; and that so far from the alleged blight, degeneracy and ruin in animal and vegetable forms, it is manifest that those which accompany man in the human period are an advance in structural complexity and completeness upon their predecessors.

(3) It is evident from the structure and teeth of paleontological fossils that carnivorous animals existed before the human period. And of existing species of carnivora it is preposterous to suppose that the lions, hyenas, lynxes, bears and wolves, for example, had their teeth and stomachs remodeled in consequence of Adam's eating the forbidden fruit; not to say that if they had, then, before that remodeling, they were not lions, hyenas, lynxes, bears or wolves at all. Even in the Garden of Eden itself there is nothing in reason to hinder that the larger fishes, if Paradise contained an aquarium or piscina, lived on the smaller fry and lower forms of life; the birds on insects, and the beasts of prey on weaker species. And that even there there should have been decay in vegetable forms, withering leaves and falling petals, and rotting pulp and dying seeds, is required by the fundamental laws of vegetable growth and propagation. Vegetable growth cannot be conceived without decay. How could the blades of grass continue to grow in length without ever falling down and becoming food for their successors? How could a tree grow from the first sprouting to its full height without shedding even its initial leaves? And, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone. Moreover, the pulp of food-producing fruits must have rotted in the earth with the dying seeds; and if man and beast lived on vegetables, then must there have been vegetable decay and decomposition in the very process of digestion. Any other theory would make the scenes of Paradise, not to say the rest of the organic world, a collection of vegetable and animal wax-work.

Further, science sees undoubted evidence that the laws of nature in the celestial and terrestrial spaces were the same before

the human period as they have been since. The laws of gravitation, cohesion and chemical affinity remain unchanged; the laws of climate with reference to the length of the days, and as resulting from the different direction of the sun's rays in different zones, remain the same now that they were before. If a change in the position of the axis of the earth has at any time taken place, whether suddenly or gradually, it would imply no radical. deterioration, but only a transfer of climatic advantages from one part of the earth's surface to another. So far from the climates of the temperate zones being worse now than they were before, there was a time when these climates were such that man could not have existed on those parts of the earth at all, when the regions which are now most beautiful and fertile were imbedded in solid ice or swept by giant glaciers; and, that electricity and mighty tempests and volcanoes and earthquakes were among the agencies, and beneficent agencies, of nature, then as well as now, is beyond all reasonable dispute.

Thus the issue is joined, and a deadly conflict between science and religion seems inevitable; a conflict, too, in which religion is threatened with no less than a disastrous overthrow; notwithstanding the remarkable fact that what is here assumed to be her cause is to this day zealously defended by the leading theologians and the best exegetical talent of the English Church.

Now, under such circumstances, it is a no less remarkable fact that these Miltonic assumptions, however beautiful in personification or poetic in imagery; however profound in philosophy, or magnificent in conception; however supported by Platonic or Oriental ideas, by patristic authority or ecclesiastical tradition or popular acceptation, are, nevertheless, not positively affirined or necessarily implied in one solitary text in the Christian Scriptures. Let us look first at the original story of the Fall and its consequences. Here we find that:

(1). Man is sentenced to undergo the penalty of death, and return to the dust from which he was taken.

(2). The ground is "cursed" for man's sake, in that it shall produce thorns and thistles, and thus man's tillage shall become to him a painful toil.

These results, together with a special denunciation to the serpent and the woman, are absolutely all the disastrous consequen

ces of the Fall, of an external nature, recognized or intimated in the inspired history; if we except the very significant fact that the sinning pair are, for themselves and their posterity, forthwith thrust out of Paradise. There is not a syllable about the far-reaching cosmical changes of the poetic representation; and not a syllable about the death of any other creature but man himself-or . about any change in the form or constitution or mode of life, whether advantageous or disadvantageous, of any other creature besides man and the serpent.

Taking the story, therefore, in its naked and simple literalness, without attempting to soften or explain anything, whether symbolically or otherwise, we find that the universal cosmical shock and ruin dwindle down to the earth's producing thorns and thistles, for in that the curse upon the ground consisted; the introduction of death is only in relation to man, who from immortal becomes mortal and is thus degraded to a level with the beasts that perish, and not they degraded to a level with him; the great change among the carnivora and in the whole animal economy is contractted to the single malediction upon the serpent, whatever that may mean. To suppose that the whole physical creation felt the shock of man's fall, or even that the terrestrial system of things, of agencies and laws, were thereby thrown into commotion and disorder, or to suppose that the death of the lower animals is a consequence of Adam's sin, so far as the authority of the biblical record is concerned, is one of the most sheer and baseless assumptions that ever gained currency among sensible men.

Here, then, we might dismiss the question; but it may be worth while to consider whether, in fact, upon a fair and reasonable interpretation of the literal story, we have ground to believe that any change whatever in the constitution of physical or animal nature resulted from the fall, except in man himself. Man sinned and man was punished. That is all. The ground could not be punished; and, if we except the serpent, no other sensitive creature is said to have suffered change or punishment but man. That the alternation of light and darkness, of day and night, is a blessing and not a curse, let Milton testify, in Adam's morning hymn. That the varying round of seasons is no malediction, but a beauty and a glory of God's creation, a source of gratitude and not of complaint, let the sweet verse of Thomson bear witness.

Earthquakes, tempests and electric agencies are all good in their places, are blessings and benefits. If they were abstracted from our terrestrial system of things, we know not what might be the result, but probably a catastrophe vastly more disastrous than that which is fabled to have been the result of the fall. Thorns and thistles, too, are in themselves beautiful and "good," manifesting the wisdom and glory of their Maker; and, whatever be their . character, it is not likely that they were first created after man's fall. But especially we must remember that man, before his fall, was placed in a beautiful garden planted by God himself with every tree that was pleasant to the eye and desirable for its fruit; and that man was placed in it to dress it and keep it. This garden we must of course presume to have had great advantages, for its cultivators, over the world outside. If the world without had been, before man's fall, as free from thorns and thistles and from everything disagreeable or cumbersome, and as abundant in fruits and delights, as the garden was, what meaning was there in the planting of the garden at all? When, therefore, man was driven out of the garden, may he not have found the thorns and thistles already there to receive him, and so the ground have been cursed for his sake, that is, in its unfruitfulness and production of noisome weeds, made a curse to him and for his (not its own) punishment? May it not be that the change was not in the ground, but in man's relation to it? May not the ground, though remaining as it was before, be said to become accursed in being brought into such a relation to man as to become a curse to him? Just as God is said to have set the rainbow in the cloud after the flood, as a sign; not that the rainbow did not exist or was never seen before, but that thenceforward it was appointed to a new purpose. In like manner we may interpret the curse upon the serpent also. We see that the curse consisted in what, as a matter of fact, is now common to the whole serpent kind. But was this serpent the progenitor of all serpents in their multitudinous species, large and small, that now crawl upon the surface of the earth? If so, it would be a good entering wedge for Darwinism. But it seems hardly likely to have been the case; and, if not, then is it likely that all the other species would be degraded from some nobler form for his fault? But they must have been, or else they were already in this degraded form; and the serpent-tempter

himself, if degraded from some more noble form to theirs, was not a serpent before; and so the animal that tempted Eve was no serpent at all, and we end in contradicting ourselves. But whether this animal was the progenitor of all the species of serpents or not, if we interpret as we do in the case of the rainbowsign, we may say that, though in fact he went upon his belly before and ate the dirt, or lived on dirt, this grovelling condition was thenceforth to stand in a new relation, to be a mark of degradation associated with his act of enmity to mankind. Thus, the serpent (who, as serpent, could be guilty of no moral fault) was cursed, not by any change in his physical structure or constitution, but by attaching to it, for man, a new reference or significance; and the new significance was quite as striking and appropriate for its purpose as was that of the rainbow. How far this serpent, in his deed and the curse pronounced upon him, symbolized and represented that old serpent, the devil, who possessed him and spoke by his mouth, it is aside from our present purpose to consider; we are dealing with the literal and phenomenal facts of the

case.

As for the so-called "curse of labor," activity and exercise are blessings, labor may become a happiness and an honor; and it is to be observed that before his fall Adam had the garden to dress and keep. Labor is not called a curse in the story; but if a curse, it consisted chiefly, we may well presume, in a subjective change in man himself, in a moral change consequent upon his moral fault, in the loss of cheerful elasticity of mind, in a spirit of indolence, self-indulgence and impatience, whereby that effort which had been and should have been but joyous play, but pleasurable and wholesome exertion, became a heavy burden of toil and drudgery. Partly also it may have had objective conditions. Man was thrust out from the beautiful garden into the wild and unkempt world without. His efforts became exacting, and their rewards precarious. Now labor, even though exhausting, is sweetened by the attainment of its ends, and the abundance of its fruits. But when these fruits are scanty and their attainment uncertain and often frustrated, labor becomes a grievous burden and a bitter cup.

Man was originally intended for immortality; if he had not sinned he would never have died. Yet the original command to him was, to increase and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. If