The second part of the Hebrew story, the account of the Fall, shows signs of being a composite of two earlier tales. Sir James George Frazer, who knows more folk lore than any other man, living or dead, thinks he can trace in it two famous and widespread stories, the Story of the Perverted Message, and the Story of the Cast Skin. The former is told among native tribes all over Africa, and its purport invariably is that God sent a messenger to tell man that he was not to die; if he seemed to die, it would only be for three days, just as the moon seemed to die for three days, and after that time he would come to life again. But the messenger, in some of the stories stupidly, in others with malice prepense, told man instead that he would surely die, just as the moon dies. Man believed the messenger, and therefore he dies. A number of the stories say that two messengers were sent, one to tell man that he would live forever, the other to tell him that he would die; and the messenger of good tidings was slow of foot, so that the word of death came to man first, and he refused to believe the word of life when it came.

The Story of the Cast Skin is found frequently in Africa and in the Pacific Islands. It is based on the belief that snakes have immortal youth at the cost of shedding their old skins yearly. Men and women used to have this privilege, too; but there was once an old woman who had an infant grandchild, and when she came back to him young and beautiful, after bathing in the river and shedding her old skin, he cried and would not let her touch him. So she went back to the river and fished out her old skin, which had caught on a root, and put it on again. Ever since then mankind has lost the power of renewing its youth.

Some of the African and Melanesian tribes combine the two stories. For instance, one version is that the Good Spirit, loving men, wanted to make them live forever. So he said to his brother, "Go to men and take them the secret of immortality. Tell them to cast their skins every year. So will they be protected from death, for their life will be constantly renewed." But his brother gave the message of hope to the serpents, and commanded men to die. Since then all men have been mortal, and all serpents immortal.

If Sir James Frazer is right, the original version of

the Hebrew story of the Fall was that God sent the serpent with a message to Adam and Eve, urging them to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever, but not to touch the Tree of Death, "for in the moment that ye eat thereof ye shall surely die." (The idea of a fruit that will produce immortality, and the personification of both wisdom and evil by the serpent, are found in many countries.) But the serpent, "who was more subtile than any beast of the field ", decided that he would eat of the Tree of Life himself, and to dispense with rivals, he went to Eve and said:

"Eat not of the Tree of Life, but eat of the Tree of Death, and live forever.

So Eve ate of the Tree of Death, and gave Adam of its fruit; whereupon they and all men became mortal. But the wily serpent ate of the Tree of Life, and he and his kind became immortal.

If that was the original version, all the more honour to the nameless Hebrew scribe for changing it into its present form!

The Semitic imagination which created the tragedy of the Garden of Eden was not content to let its exquisite simplicity go unadorned. Adam's head, according to Rabbinical lore, was made of earth (Adamah is the Hebrew word for earth) from the Holy Land, his trunk of earth from Babylonia, while his limbs were modeled of soil brought from more distant lands. He was as glorious as an angel to look upon, his body stretched from earth to heaven, and his skin was like a bright garment; but when he sinned his stature was diminished, and his skin shone no more. His first wife was Lilith, who flew away from him and became a demon. Lilith kills all children sinfully begotten, even of a lawful wife; she seduces unmarried men, and bears them demon children. On his right side Adam had thirteen ribs instead of twelve, and out of that extra rib and of flesh from his heart, Eve was made.

It is from the Rabbahs that Milton gets the idea that Eve urged Adam to eat of the fruit of death because she was jealous of a possible successor.

A Rabbi of the Christian Church, St. Augustine, is responsible for the complementary Miltonic theory that Adam ate the fruit because he loved Eve too dearly not to share her fate:

"If death

Consort with thee, death is to me as life.
Our state cannot be severed: we are one,

One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself."

Mark Twain's Adam, after several hundred years of matrimony, was still satisfied with his choice of Eve. "It is better," he said, "to live outside the garden with her than inside of it without her."

The doctrine of Original Sin, which has laid on Adam the burden of all the sin and death in the world, is the creation of Paul. Curiously enough, there is not a single explicit reference in either the Old Testament (exclusive of Genesis 3) or the New to the story of the Fall, outside of the Pauline Epistles. In commenting upon Adam's sin, the Jewish Haggadists emphasize the efficacy of repentance; and against Paul's "For as in Adam all die," they protest, "No man dies without a sin of his own," quoting Ezekiel, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked upon him."

No other doctors disagree so emphatically as doctors of divinity. Perhaps the best way to take the story of Adam and Eve is to take it as a story; to read human nature into it as you will, but not to be dogmatically sure of the divine nature it reveals, since its God walks in the garden in the cool of the day, flies into a passion at disobedience, curses bitterly his comparatively innocent creations, and then, repenting of his fury, makes them garments of skin to replace their lost glory of innocence. It needs only that final touch of the armed guards stationed at the gate of Paradise, keeping poor mortals, hungry for immortality, from the Tree of Life, to establish the presumption that the God of the Garden of Eden is a god made in the image of man.

ANNA BRANSON HILLYARD.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH

GOVERNMENT?

BY ALLEYNE IRELAND

II.

IN my preceding article I presented to the reader some considerations in regard to the almost universal prevalence of discontent with the state of Government. I took up the special case of Government in the United States, and, for the purpose of drawing a distinction between rhapsodism and realism in Government, I instituted a series of comparisons between what goes on aboard a ship of commerce and on board the Ship of State.

Accepting the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution as the equivalent of a commercial ship's charter, I showed that the Ship of State had but the vaguest instructions as to what its port of destination was; that Liberty, Happiness, Justice, and Equality are susceptible of such an infinite variety of Interpretation that, in the absence of very specific instructions, the captain of the Ship of State would be at a loss to set the course for his vessel.

Where are these instructions to be found? If they are to be found anywhere it must be in the Articles and Amendments of the Constitution. That is where I now propose to look for them.

I may preface my search by recalling to the reader's attention that it is the mate of the Ship of Commerce who must keep in contact with the realities of the weather, must note the falling barometer, the threatening clouds. If the captain sets the course, it is the mate who must see that the man at the wheel keeps the ship's head on that course, must so trim his yards that the course can be made, and must maintain the working routine upon which the safe naviga

tion of the ship, and the order and comfort of the crew depend.

Aboard the Ship of State the functions of the captain are performed by the Supreme Court, and those of the mate are performed by the complicated machinery set up under the Constitution, and by the officials appointed or elected to keep it in motion. To these officials-executive, judicial, and legislative are assigned the duty of seeing that the machinery is employed only for purposes which are constitutional, and is operated only by methods which are constitutional. The constitutionality of purpose and of method is determined by the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, which, at the time I write, is composed of nine judges.

It is upon what is stated in the Articles and Amendments of the Constitution that these judges are to decide, when any specific matter is brought before them, whether any law duly enacted in the United States, whether it be Federal, State, or Municipal, may stand, or must fall, and whether any act done or suffered by any citizen of the United States, or by any other person therein residing, is done or suffered in violation of the constitutional rights of the parties.

For our present purpose it is not necessary to enter upon a minute examination of the Constitution. It will suffice if some of its general characteristics are considered, and one or two specific points discussed.

The first general characteristic of the Constitution which impresses itself upon the notice of the observer is the immense amount of interpretation which has been needed to clarify its meaning. Dr. Hannis Taylor, in his monumental work on The Origin and Growth of the American Constitution, quotes no less than thirty-one cases in which the meaning of the Preamble has been the subject of legal disputes. To the lay mind no part of the Constitution appears to be more explicit, or more clearly phrased, than the first paragraph of Section X of Article I, which reads:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money, emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility; but Dr. Taylor quotes more than two hundred and fifty