66 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." 66 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; And, cajoled by judge and vengeance, grind their brother in the dust. On the poor man's hard-earned wages, given to the bank in trust; Thus the rich man pays a license to indulge his wretched vice, When a man brings legal action, and the holy judge accosts, And should purse be thin or empty, then the court machine will pause; Then for some one's sure conviction, there are oft'times great rewards; 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, Yet, in view of all these evils which the world has borne so long, That the law makes rich men masters, and the poor their willing slaves. Government makes heavy taxes to enrich a favored few. [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 |