ludes by saying that "An Aristotle was but the
rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise." But a
candid perusal of Genesis obliges us to dissent from this view, Adam and
Eve were a very childish pair. Whatever intellect they possessed
they carefully concealed. Not a scintillation of it has reached us.
Shakespeare and Newton are an infinite improvement on Adam and Eve. One
of the Gnostic sects, who played such havoc with the early Christian
Church, utterly rejected the idea of a Fall. "The Ophites," says Didron,
"considered the God of the Jews not only to be a most wicked but an
unintelligent being.... According to their account, Jalda-baoth,
the wicked demi-god adored by the Jews under the name of Jehovah, was
jealous of man, and wished to prevent the progress of knowledge; but the
serpent, the agent of superior wisdom, came to teach man what course he
ought to pursue, and by what means he might regain the knowledge of good
and evil. The Ophites consequently adored the serpent, and cursed the
true God Jehovah."

Before expelling Adam and Eve from Eden, the Lord took pity on their
nakedness, and apparently seeing that their skill in needle-work did not
go beyond aprons, he "made coats of skins, and clothed them." Jehovah
was thus the first tailor, and the prototype of that imperishable class
of workmen, of whom it was said that it takes nine of them to make a
man. He was also the first butcher and the first tanner, for he must
have slain the animals and dressed their skins.

Lest they should return he "placed at the east of the Garden of Eden
_Cherubims_, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way
of the tree of life." As this guard seems never to have been relieved,
profane wits have speculated whether the Flood drowned them, and
quenched the flaming sword with a great hiss. Ezekiel describes the
Cherubims with characteristic magnificence. These creatures with wings
and wheels were "full of eyes round about." And "everyone had low faces:
the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the
face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face
of an eagle." What monsters! No wonder they effectually frightened poor
Adam and Eve from attempting a re-entrance into the Garden.

Perhaps the reader would like to know what became of the Tree of
Knowledge. One legend of the Middle Ages relates that Eve along with
the forbidden fruit broke off a branch which