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Multiply and replenish the earth :" Here is clearly taught that the earth had previously been inhabited, and, in succeeding ages depopulated, otherwise the command to "replenish" would not have been given. Therefore, if we give due credence to word meanings, we must conclude that the earth had been filled with inhabitants. This was evidently well understood at that time, for it was not thought necessary by Moses, the writer of this account, to further mention it.

The idea is further expressed in Gen. IV, 16; "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the East of Eden."

Verse 17: "And Cain knew his wife" etc. Now up to this time there is no account of Adam's having other children than Cain, hence the question is often asked, "Where did Cain get his wife?" This we think is answered by the words in Gen. VI, 2, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

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Verse 4th says, "There were giants in the earth in those days; " Whence came these "giants"? The answer is circumstantial. Verse 2, above quoted reads; "The sons of God saw the daughters of men." Now Adam's posterity was called the "sons of God;" Why should they, more than other men, be called sons of God? We think Jesus answers this query (John X, 35.) "If he called them God's to whom the word of God came, etc." Again, Exodus, IV, 22, “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son," etc. Now if we recognize the fact that God and His laws are unchangeable, then the fact that the word (creative utterance) of God came to some one person, there must be something in the person to cause it, and it should not be attributed to favor, for it is plainly stated that "God is no respecter of persons" then we must conclude that he was the highest development of the earth's inhabitants at that time (see Ezekiel, XVII) which made it necessary, from the law of nature, that he should inspire (draw in) and become conscious of the will, and purpose of God in creating man and constituting him a son of God in a more perfect sense than those who had no consciousness of God. and but simply animal perception.

From the above we think it clear that Moses took it as a matter of 'course that Adam was not the first man, but the first to whom the word of God came, and the first to express the attributes of manly capacities in accordance with His purpose.

Verse 29: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree, yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”

Verse 30th declares the same of "every beast and of every "fowl of the air." This would imply that neither man, beast, nor bird were car nivorous; that all was peace among them; no one killing and eating another, which accords with the ancient Egyptian teachings, and now believed by many of the Hindoos, and embodied in many of the Buddhistic legends.

To-day it is believed by many, that if man had not commenced to kill animals and eat their flesh, that none of the animals would be antagonistie to man; that in the "Golden Age man had dominion over all things, that is, that his thoughts, feelings, and desires, were responded to by the animal kingdom, but when he began to kill and eat them, they, in self

protection, and in response to the higher human mind, began to do the same. There is no doubt that there is much truth in this idea, especially in so far as it relates to the antagonism between man and beast. They instinctively feel man to be an enemy, and will resist him as such.

We are convinced from experience that man can make a covenant of peace with all living things, and after he has kept that covenant long enough to free the body from all desire for flesh food, can, with impunity, meet all the most ferocious beasts, and they will recognize that covenant and also keep it with him.

The higher always controls the lower, and if man exalts mind above muscle, and stops all struggle in that direction, the beast will be subject to him, but as long as the muscle is the governing power of man, he will find many enemies in the animal kingdom.

It is quite well authenticated that the oriental recluse lives among the lions, tigers, and the most vicious of snakes, such as the hooded cobra, in perfect peace; they lie down together and they are harmless to them. Isaiah prophesied a time to come when this condition of things will be universal; "And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the child shall play on the hole of the asp; and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They "shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the KNOWLEDGE of God, as the waters cover the sea." Isaiah says here it shall be because of the fulness of the knowledge of, or concerning God. Through continued obedience to this law, we know it to be true.

Verse 31: "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning was the sixth day." Please bear in mind that this is the work under the sixth period or stage of the earth's development, for we shall soon have occasion to revert to it again.

VISTE VITE. (Continued.)

BY M. T. MARTIN, M. D.

Government makes law and court-house, where Injustice stands supreme;
Makes the vain and vicious lawyer with his dark satanic scheme;
Makes the judge of solemn visage with revenge upon his brow:
Makes the fawning, coward jury bend to what the courts allow ;
Bend to bigot judge's charges, bend to precedents unjust.

And, cajoled by judge and vengeance, grind their brother in the dust.
Government makes law tyrannic, lays its cornerstone in cash;
Frees the wealthy for his lucre, chastens poor men with the lash:
Takes the drunken nabob homeward in an easy cushioned coach;
Hurries drunken poor to prison with the shackle and reproach ;
Gives the moneyed convict parlors, raiment soft and dainty fare;
Gives the poor a clammy dungeon, filthy food and sackcloth wear.
And the wily Christian banker, teacher of the Sunday school,
All the assets may embezzle and the creditors befool. :
But he settles with them quickly for the half of what he stole,
And he lives in ease and comfort at the head of fashion's roll.

On the poor man's hard-earned wages, given to the bank in trust;
While the workman goes in tatters; and they say the law is just.
But the destitute and needy, when a ragged coat he steals,
To protect from frosts of winter and the piercing wind he feels;
When for starving wife and children he purloins a loaf of bread,
To appease the pangs of hunger, ere the spark of life has fled;
When his babe lies low in anguish, to procure the needed aid,
He despoils the pious banker who his fortune foully made;
Then they seize the base transgressor; thrust him in an iron cell,
And the door upon its hinges, creaks his little baby's knell;
For he has no cash to forfeit, and no friends to furnish bail.
So the little babe is buried while the father lies in jail;
Then the courts exult in boasting of our statutes without flaw,
And their method of preserving the high majesty of law.

Thus the rich man pays a license to indulge his wretched vice,
And he holds respect and honor for the law has had its price.
But the poor, for such a trespass, goes to prison in disgrace,
For he has no golden ducats, his corruption to erase.
Then the first is called a genius, and in congress sent to dwell,
While the last is called a jail-bird, and they send him down to hell.

When a man brings legal action, and the holy judge accosts,
Law demands a cash deposit, or a surety bond for costs;

And should purse be thin or empty, then the court machine will pause;
Justice folds her arms in silence when a poor man pleads his cause.
And the fabled hoodwinked goddess always dollars can behold,
And her false, unequal balance quickly feels the touch of gold.
All the lawyers work for money, never caring for the right;
Striving only for the verdict, though the innocent they smite.
So the rich man buys the jurist, giving brain and shrewd advice,
While the poor man gets a shyster, having but a shyster's price.
Right or wrong, the deepest pocket gains the day by golden dust,
And the poor, with fond devotion, still contend the law is just.
When they drag to law's tribunal working men accused of crime;
Waiting not for proof nor reason, giving not a moment's time;
But with fetters force to prison, and a felon's gloomy cell;
Telling neither friends nor kindred, waiting not for love's farewell.
And, if innocent or guilty of the charge of this dark deed,
Wheels of justice turn for dollars, it takes money to be freed.

Then for some one's sure conviction, there are oft'times great rewards;
When, to wreak a fearful vengeance misers will divide their hoards.
And the fiendish, foul detective, satan in a human frame,
Will, to reap the golden harvest, stoop to any crime or shame.
Bribe the judge and pack the jury; spirit witnesses away;
Even murder prisoner's counsel just to aid him win the day.

Such the courts and such the juries, rogues have schemed and wealth

installed.

And, before such bar of justice, honest courage stands appalled ;

So the poor man with his shyster, fails the jury to persuade,
For the state has royal talent, who most royally is paid.
And the brilliant states attorney heralds forth his blatant boast,
That supplying jail and gallows holds his fat official post.

Yet, in view of all these evils which the world has borne so long,
People will not strike for freedom, choosing still to suffer wrong.
And they ask in fear and trembling, as their eyes stare wild with awe,
How the people could get justice, were it not for courts of law.
Seeing not the truth that justice is administered by knaves,

That the law makes rich men masters, and the poor their willing slaves.
Blinded to the truth most glaring, law is only just in name;
That it crushes pure and noble, while the vile it leads to fame ;
That its methods all are heartless, and the good it oft' betrays;
That it never strikes the wicked, but the righteous too it slays;
That 'twere better many millions of the guilty should go free,
Ere one innocent should suffer by an infamous decree.

Government makes heavy taxes to enrich a favored few.
And the weight of all this burden falls upon the square and true;
Falls upon the tired workman as the sweat rolls off his brow;
Falls upon the honest farmer as he guides the cumbrous plow;
Falls upon each wealth producer, on each toiler in the land,
On each artisan and worker, on each faithful blistered hand.
But it touches not the banker with his sureties and his notes,
And the more they tax his papers, still the more he sits and gloats;
For he adds to his percentage, and the workman pays the bill.
For the banker earns no money, but the poor his coffers fill.
And the thoughtless people sanction, as the money he collects,
As the mortgage he forecloses, and the family ejects.

[To be continued]

MAN'S POTENTIALITIES.

BY THEODORE WRIGHT.

NOTHING has ever been done by any one in human flesh which does not throw its own strong and certain light upon this subject. Man is like everything besides in the Universe-potential alike for the abuse as the use of all that he controls. What he will do at any period of his history is determined by the knowledge he has experimentally acquired. As a rule, to put him as fully to the test as may be, those courses which are bound to be most severe and afflictive to him, if he choose them, are superficially made to appear so captivating to his inexperienced nature, that they are almost bound to be the ways of his full experience therein, convinces him that he has gone far astray. The first part of his nature to be caught by his surroundings, while inexperienced then, is pretty sure to be his external, flesh nature. That, we know, is, in its very constitution, adverse to everything pure and spiritual, so as certainly as it is placed under no manner of restraint, but has perfect freedom of choice to exercise, man is almost certain to fall into gross and grievous mistakes, wherein

he must suffer and stand fully corrected, before he will endeavor to retrace his steps. Whatever the fall of man in itself may be, it is pretty clearly shadowed forth from the beginning, as a potentiality of his nature, provided all the conditions for it surround him to put him thus severely to the test.

It appears that P. B. Randolph denies to some extent that man is an animal. Various thinkers on the astral and spiritual planes, declare that there is a higher phase of generation open to man, than the physical with which he is now so enamored, that is when once the whole truth floods his nature, and he is fully able to receive it. Before the Fall, man was a dual being, had control of the entire animal kingdom, subsisted solely by eating fruits and grains, and had no affinity with animals, his affinity being, so far as we can gather, more with the angels. What appears to suggest itself in the allegorical presentation of man's early history in the first chapters of Genesis, is that when man had so much to do with the animals, desires crept into his inexperienced mind to experience some of their sensual pleasures, and he then conceived the wish or desire to be sexed that is for a counterpart to be by his side as a companion, instead of within him as she was then. As a matter of course he had but to desire, and the thing was promptly done.

Eve was at once separated from Adam, and then desire found further scope, and carnal generation precipitated man into the vortex of animality with all its consequences. Man was qualified by his construction, and by his inexperience to fall into this snare; but provided he did, he was not to fulfil his high destiny by remaining therein, his uplift therefrom was predestined, and was to be brought about by a fully regenerative process, as fast as he was brought to realize its advisability, and could be prompted or in any way caused to condition himself to receive it. Hence of this very thing the Great Master himself says: He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

That man is animal, that his carnal nature actually dominates him now. that it effectually prevents him, while thus dominant, from attaining to his high destiny; that such a potentiality of degradation can only hold him in bitter bondage to corruption, disease, distress of all kinds and death, are the inevitable manifestations of the present truth. That he is destined to remain thus an animal; that he is not interiorly constituted to be dominated by something essentially distinct from his carnal nature; that his spiritual nature alone, which is not in affinity with the animal world at all, is not ample to qualify him to fulfill his high destiny, and that he may not soar thereby into a state of wondrous life, freedom and power separating him henceforward from everything to which his animal nature now binds. him, cannot by anyone be shown. Involved in man's being somewhere are such potentialities that when once he fully awakens to them, and shakes himself determinedly clear of his animality, all — and even more than all, than he was constituted to be originally,—must and will become his eternal portion.

No doubt among the hidden potentialities of his wondrous, and now wondrously misconstructed being, are powers of generation to which this item of physical or sexual generation is only correspondentially related. Man can as freely increase and multiply, and so replenish the earth, as an animal on the lowest physical plane; or as a higher being in the mental or intermediate plane; or, yet further as an angel on the highest spirit