If a human standard of truth demands words from human lips, imparting to the listener the veritable ideas in the mind of the speaker, shall we expect less from the voice of God, and accept as divine the Mosaic negation of natural law involved in the conception of Divinity accomplishing in a few hours the mighty works on which Nature has expended millions of years -a negation deemed infallible until the genius of man had extracted the secrets of Nature from the depths of the ocean and the bowels of the earth? How much more prudent for the modern worshippers of a personal Deity to recognise in Elohistic cosmogony the poetic version of an ancient tradition, sublime in conception of divine power, but disclosing its merely human authorship in ignorance of Nature's laws, rather than stamp divine revelation with the character of Delphian oracles, uttering equivocating words susceptible of adaptation to the course of events!

If the compilers of Genesis had wisely restricted its contents to the narrative of the Elohist, they would have transmitted to posterity a conception of Divinity worthy of Hebrew genius; but, through the injudicious fusion of his work with that of the more credulous Jehovist, they debased the majestic image of Elohim by legends more characteristic of Olympian mythology than divine revelation.

Jehovah is a name prolific in interminable controversies, as to pronunciation, origin, and date of adoption by the Hebrews. It is variously written by modern Hebrew scholars-Yahvôh-Yehěveh-Yehveh-Yahǎvâh, and Yahweh-a conflict of opinions which renders it quite unnecessary to disturb the equanimity of the

English Bible-reader by changing the familiar sound of Jehovah.

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The work of the Jehovist begins with the fourth verse of the second, and is carried to the end of the fourth chapter; to be again renewed through the interpolation of the Elohistic narrative. His version of the Creation and Fall of Man, borrowed through Persian from still more ancient mythologies, receives no confirmation from the Elohist, who tells us that Elohim said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness. So Elohim created man in his own image, in the image of Elohim created he him, male and female created he them.' And again, ‘This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that Elohim created man, in the likeness of Elohim made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.'

Elohim, being a plural noun, has been accepted by imaginative piety as the primeval annunciation of the Trinity. It is, however, a general term applied by other nations to the collective gods, inclusive of the Hebrew Deity; and the context, furthermore, indicates plurality of divinity through the androgynous essence of Elohim, who, in harmony with Egyptian and Indian theosophy, was personally masculine and feminine: 'In the image of Elohim created he him, male and female created he them... and called their name Adam.'

In the eyes of the Elohist, woman is not, therefore, the second-hand product of an Adamite rib, but an original creation after the same Divine Archetype as

man, and equally sharing with him the benediction of Elohim and the possession of the earth.

The Jehovist knows nothing of Humanity fashioned in the image of a God. Adam is simply vitalised dust, and Eve a mere after-thought devised for his comfort and convenience. There can be no affinity with the gods in the mental and moral blindness which sees no difference between good and evil, and is therefore unconscious of responsibility in thought or action.

Let us imagine the sudden awaking of primeval man to startled consciousness of the external world, confused by sensation, alarmed by sound, dazzled by light, absorbed in the mysterious sympathy of sex, and yet unconsciously entrusted, in this condition of mental imbecility, with the future destinies of Humanity, staked on his unintelligent obedience to an arbitrary command, sustained by a death-penalty conveying no meaning to his infantine ignorance.

At this supreme crisis, Jehovah retires from the scene; and a mysterious serpent, detected by later theologians as Satan in masquerade, tempts poor simpleminded Eve with an apple from the tree of knowledge; unless, therefore, divine assistance is at hand, the Fall of man is a foregone conclusion. A sudden inspiration, a voice from heaven, an angel's visit, may defeat ophidian or Satanic design, and snatch mankind from mortality or perdition; but, alas! no miraculous portent arrests the hand of Eve, the fatal fruit is gathered, tasted, held to the lips of Adam, and the simplicity, which knows no difference between the command of a God and the advice of a serpent, yields inevitable victory to the wiles of snake or demon.

The heat of the day is past; Jehovah walks through the garden of Eden in the cool of the evening; discovers man's disobedience; curses the serpent with the bodily motion evolved by ages; condemns Adam to the labour by which prehistoric man had existed for countless generations; decrees the degradation of Humanity through the domestic bondage of woman, henceforth dependent for her social position on the prejudice, caprice, and passion of her lord and master; and finally pronounces the sentence of death, in apparent unconsciousness that mortality had reigned supreme on earth throughout ages remote from the chronology of Eden.

' And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil, and now lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever.'1 These are the words of Jehovah. If, therefore, Eve had chanced to pluck an apple from that other tree, Adam, contrary to the design of his Creator, would have been enrolled among the gods, and this diminutive earth would have long since failed to hold the countless multitude of his immortal descendants.

Modern research, however, redeems us from bondage to this superstition. As the evidence of the rocks records the remote antiquity of the earth, so also the evidence of the fossils proclaims the countless generations of man; and as we trace his footsteps to prehistoric ages, and discern his gradual ascent from lower to higher conditions of life, we necessarily assign the legend of Eden its legitimate place among the myths of antiquity.

1 Gen. iii. 22.

Let us briefly review some further legends from the pen of the Jehovist.

A tradition prevailed among the nations of antiquity, depicting their ancestors as men of gigantic stature, towering above the diminutive proportions of their degenerate descendants. The credulous Jehovist compromises revelation by this grotesque legend,1 full details of which are found in the book of Enoch.2

Two hundred sons of heaven or angels descended upon Ardis, the top of Mount Armon, under the leadership of Samyaza, and selected wives among the most beautiful daughters of men, who became the mothers of monstrous giants, of appetites so destructive that they not only devoured birds, beasts, reptiles, and fishes, but even lived, as cannibals, on human flesh.

This appalling reign of violence and cruelty on earth at length aroused Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and other loyal members of the heavenly Host; and, on their appeal for retribution to the throne of God, the giant offspring of the apostate angels were supernaturally excited to destroy each other; and Samyaza, with his companions in crime, was hurled in fetters beneath the earth, to await in darkness the day of judgment, in which they shall be taken away in the lowest depths of the fire in torments, and in confinement shall they be shut up for ever.' 3

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The credibility of this legend is attested by apostles. In the second Epistle of Peter we read: For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to

1 Gen. vi. 1-4.

3 Enoch x. 16.

2 Enoch vii.—x.

4 2 Pet. ii. 4.