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zens, men, women, and children, followed; and all France soon ran with blood. Thus human reason, a traitor since the fall, shows what it will do when it is made a god.

The religions of the world have always formed a very important part of its history. When Adam altered his relations to God through the fall, the instant change which came upon his moral and physical nature, affected his whole future history; and not only his, but also that of all his posterity. Ever since, according to the character of their religions, have nations been elevated or debased. It will always be seen that "righteousness exalteth a nation ;"1 and, 'happy is that people whose God is the Lord." "

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1 Prov. xiv. 34.

2

2 Psalms cxliv. 15.

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CHAPTER XXXVI.

ANCIENT TRADITIONS-CREATION-CHAOS-SABBATH-GARDEN OF EDEN-MAN, ONE FAMILY-EARLY GOLDEN AGE-DETERIORATION OF THE RACE THE FALL SATAN-THE SERPENT

THE DELUGE-MOUNTAINS-CHERUBIMS-TOWER

OF BABEL-EARLY GIANTS-END OF THE WORLD-AFRICAN

TRADITIONS.

A

LMOST all nations have retained, through tradition, some ideas of creation, of the Fall, of the Deluge, and of the other great facts connected with the early history of the world; all clearly derived from the same original source. The universality of a tradition serves to confirm the historical truth of the fact on which it was founded: the word of God, however, needs no such testimony. These traditions are worthy of an examination, as they are part of history, and have helped to form it.

Creation, Chaos.-The first heathen writings, which have come down to us perfect, are those of the poets, Hesiod and Homer. They flourished about B. C. 900; a century after Solomon had electrified the earth by his wisdom. Hesiod's account of the origin of all things evidently presents scraps of distorted truth. He says, that Chaos (which answers to the

NOTE. In preparing this and some of the following chapters free use has been made of a learned and interesting work, entitled "The Bible and the Classics," by the late Rev. William Meade. Such as desire to examine more fully into the connection between the Bible and the many gleams of primitive truth which have found their way into the religions of the heathen, and are scattered through the writings of the ancient heathen philosophers and poets, will be gratified by that work.

TRADITION-SABBATH

GARDEN OF EDEN. 161

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"without form and void" of the Bible) was the parent of Earth, of Erebus, and of Night. The Hebrew word for evening is erev, from which Erebus seems to have been formed. From Erebus and Night, he goes on to say, came the Sky and Day. From Earth came Heaven, Hills, Groves, etc. From Heaven and Earth came Ocean, etc. All these, which in the Bible history appear in beautiful succession, created by the word of God, the poet makes gods; and then adds fables concerning them that shock both common sense and decency. Some of the Greeks, dissatisfied with Hesiod's fables, invented fresh ones. The Athenians called themselves sons of the earth" and "children of the clay," claiming that their forefather was the first of created beings; having a plain reference to the creation of Adam. Before Hesiod's time, Orpheus had taught that, In the beginning were chaos and a thick darkness; that light burst forth; that the sun, moon and stars came out of chaos; and that man was formed out of dust, and was endued with a rational soul by a supreme creative divinity. Thales, six centuries later, after learning wisdom in the East, taught nearly the same. The Phoenicians, according to Sanchoniathon, held, that dark air and chaos, mixed, formed the rudiments of all things; then appeared the sun, moon and stars; afterwards the fishes and the finite creation, and last of all two mortals were formed, the parents of the human race. Chaos, or water, or some fluid mass, is spoken of in the writings of many of the ancient philosophers and poets as that out of which the Great Mind made all all things. In time chaos itself was deified.

Sabbath. We have already noticed the fact of the Sabbath having found its way among almost all nations. According to the Institute of Menu, the Hindoostanees hold that after the Supreme Power had created the universe he again. retired into himself, from a state of energy to one of repose. God rested.

Garden of Eden.-The idea of the Garden of Eden also

appears in the writings of Hesiod. He describes the first period of human existence as a golden age. Men lived like gods, without pain, or care, or old age; the fields yielded their fruits untilled; and every day was crowned with happiness. Death comes into his account, but it was only a painless translation to another state. The Grecian fable, the story of the Garden of the Hesperides, and of the golden apples guarded by a dreadful dragon, that never slept, was probably founded on some tradition concerning the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, and of the guard placed at the entrance after man's fall. According to the fable, Hercules, the strong man of the ancients, partly human and partly divine, killed the dragon, and gathered the apples. This part of the fable may have arisen from the first promise: that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, the old dragon, and thus the way to the tree of life should be again opened.

Man, one family.—The traditions of all nations, connected even with their religions, point in some form to Noah and his sons, as the fathers of the present race of men. Thus uniting in their testimony that all mankind are of one blood.

Early golden age-Deterioration of the race.-The ancient poets and philosophers speak of four successive ages through which the world had been passing, the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron. The comparative value of the metals representing their characters. Some of them speak of two such series; the first beginning at creation, the second after the deluge. That the first age of each was the purest, and that each successive period was marked by gradual deterioration, all history, both sacred and profane, attest most clearly. The experience of six thousand years confirms the word of God, as to the constantly falling state of man, and gives the lie to infidel teachers and pretended moral reformers, who teach that man can elevate himself. Instead of progressing morally or physically, all

TRADITION-THE FALL-THE SERPENT.

163

history, as well as the condition of the nations of the world at the present day, shows that man, in proportion as he is left to himself, and is without the influence of the Word and the Spirit of God, has always had a tendency to greater corruption; and is thus continually fulfilling the prophetic sentence pronounced at the fall, "Dying thou shalt die."

The Fall.-The Greek fables, relate that the first woman was made by the chief god, and gifted by all the lesser divinities (hence her name Pandora, i. e., all gifts), on purpose to punish a certain man (Promotheus, a name signifying more cunning) for attempting to deceive the chief god about a sacrifice. Hesiod, after elegantly describing all the various beauties of this fair creation, entitles her "a lovely mischief to the soul of man." To this first woman, says the poet, the chief god (Jupiter) gave a box, desiring her to present it to her husband; and when he opened it, out came all sorts of evils and diseases, which spread themselves abroad, and altered the whole condition of the human race. In this we see the relics of the tradition of Adam tempted by Eve, and the direful consequences of sin; the end of the fable makes it appear that the notion of some promise connected with the Woman was also afloat in the world. At the bottom of Pandora's box, Hope is said to have remained, easing the labors, and alleviating the troubles and sorrows of the human family.

Satan-The Serpent.-In the Gothic theology, which was brought from the East, we have an account of a celebrated tree, which was the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, with an infernal serpent ever gnawing at its root. The god Thor, their middle divinity or mediator between God and man, is said "to have bruised the head of a great serpent." In India, two sculptured figures are yet extant in one of their oldest pagodas, one of which represents Chrishna, an incarnation of Vishnu, trampling on the crushed head of the serpent, while the other exhibits the serpent encircling the deity

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