Adam-ondi-Ahman

“ There is the place where it was ordained that Adam should have the power, as the Ancient of Days, after a certain period and dispensations had rolled away, to come in his glory accompanied by the ancient Saints, the generations that should live after him and should take up their abode upon that land where they received their last blessing, there in the valley of Adam-ondi-ahman. ”

“ And Adam, first of men, answered where he stood on earth: "When I heard the Lord, my God, speaking with a mighty voice, He bade me dwell here keeping His commandments, gave me this woman, this lovely maid, bade me take heed and be not tempted to the tree of death and utterly beguiled, and said that he who taketh to his heart one whit of evil shall dwell in blackest hell. Though thou art come with lies and secret wiles, I know not that thou art an angel of the Lord from heaven. ”

“ The Apostle of God said, "When the life of Adam was completed except forty years, the angel of death came to him. And Adam said, 'Are there not yet forty years of my life remaining?' He replied, 'Didst thou not give them to thy son David?' Then Adam denied, and his descendants have denied, and Adam forgot and ate of the tree, and his descendants have forgotten, and Adam sinned, and his descendants have sinned."'—At Tirmidhí. ”

“ Man was created in God's likeness, free from sin, sickness, and death; but this Adam, who crept in, Mrs. Eddy does not explain how, was the origin of our belief that there is life in matter and was to obstruct our growth in spirituality. Mrs. Eddy says, "Divide the name Adam into two syllables, and it reads, a dam, or obstruction." This original method of word-analysis she seems to regard as final evidence concerning Adam. ”

“ How happy was the state of Adam in paradise in his first innocence! There was a constant peace between the spirit and the flesh; there was no inclination to evil; all the appetites and desires were in the most harmonious subjection to reason, so that not one of them dared to move without the command of the will (how miserable the state of us poor descendants of Adam, who have always to fight against our selves, and are constantly assailed by a hundred passions, even against our will, and are thus inclined to evil!) ”

“ A radiance shineth round about thee, gleaming splendour, which I brought forth from God on high. Thou mayest touch it! Tell Adam what vision thou hast and power by my coming. And even yet, if he will do my bidding with humble heart, I will give him of this light abundantly, as I have given thee, and will not punish his reviling words, though he deserves no mercy for the grievous ill he spake against me. So shall his children live hereafter! When they do evil, they must win God's love, avert His doom, and gain the favour of their Lord for ever! ”

“ Everything possesses a tendency to evolve. So does man, but he owns something not possessed by the others. It is his power of discretion. This gives him a superiority over others. But it also may act to his disadvantage, if not properly directed. Hence the need of guidance ; and who could be a better guide than the Creator Himself? He alone knows the true use of created things and the right way to use them.
The tale of Adam, as given in the Book of Genesis, is more or less of a nursery character. It, no doubt, appeals to human fancy, but that of an infantile character. ”

“ After eating the forbidden fruit, and being expelled from Paradise, which was in heaven, Adam was cast down to India and Eve to Jiddeh in Arabia, where they wandered alone 200 years without being able to find each other. On Adam's lamenting, God forgave his sin and led him to the districts of Mecca, where he found his wife, no more to separate. Eve gave twenty births, two children each time, one male and the other female. And God commanded each male to marry his next younger sister. ”

“ Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old, so that he must have seen many generations of his posterity. How sad must his life have been to think that by his disobedience he had not only forfeited the favor of God, the delightful pleasures of paradise, and the joys of eternal life, but that all who would descend from him must participate in the consequences of his first transgression! They fell with him from his high estate, just as when a man who is immensely wealthy fails. He does not suffer alone. His children and his children's children must become sharers in his poverty. ”

“ And God commanded Adam, saying, Of every tree that is in the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it; for in the day ye eat of it ye shall surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; let Us make him an helpmeet for him. And out of the ground God formed all the beasts of the field, and all the fowls of heaven, and brought them to Adam. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. ”

“ Of the struggle between animal instincts and reason, which is the essence of human life, this doctrine takes no account. The struggle that Adam underwent in paradise, in deciding whether to eat or not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is, according to this doctrine, no longer within the range of human experience. The question was decided, once for all, by Adam in paradise. Adam sinned for all; in other words, he did wrong, and all men are irretrievably degraded; and all our efforts to live by reason are vain and even impious. ”

“ In the 17th verse of this chapter “By one man’s offence death reigned by one,” because Adam transgressed God’s command by eating the forbidden fruit, so God turned him out of the Garden of Eden. But we are of the race of Adam. He transgressed God’s will and brought sin upon us all. But some say our hearts are full of good when we are born, but, by and by, we learn the evil from the others. But we don’t believe that; we see sometimes the little baby when he begins to talk, then he tell lies; when he begins to walk then he fight with others; when he know his parents then he disobeys them ”

“ Even the man after God's own heart owns himself conceived and born in sin, Ps. li. 5. This was Adam's own likeness, the reverse of that divine likeness in which Adam was made; but, having lost it himself, he could not convey it to his seed. Note, Grace does not run in the blood, but corruption does. A sinner begets a sinner, but a saint does not beget a saint. III. His age and death. He lived, in all, nine hundred and thirty years, and then he died, according to the sentence passed upon him, To dust thou shalt return. ”

“ Adam once, and every man after him also once, has belonged, in the centre of the soul, to God, and whether it be Adam or some far-off descendant of him, each is the creator of his own real world, and settles for himself the atmosphere in which he shall live and the inner "tincture" of his abiding nature. "Adam fell"—and any man's name can here be substituted for "Adam"—"because, though he was a spark of God's eternal essence, he broke himself off and sundered himself from the universal Will—by contraction—and withdrew into self-seeking, and centred himself in selfishness. ”

“ Adam will have to suffer punishment for his transgression, but he shall still have hope of return and mercy, because he came into My wrath on account of thy wickedness and seductive guile. And as thou overcamest Adam’s wife while she was yet a virgin, so shall one of her daughters, also a virgin, win a triumph over thee. And just as thou seemest now to have led Adam with all his possessions and kinship as spoils into thy dominion, so shall one of his sons search all thy garners and carry all thy treasures away as spoils ”

“ Also, when God created human nature in Adam alone, and would only make woman out of man, that by the union of both sexes there might be increase, in this he showed plainly that he wished to produce all that he intended with regard to human nature from man alone. Wherefore, if the race of Adam be reinstated by any being not of the same race, it will not be restored to that dignity which it would have had, had not Adam sinned, and so will not be completely restored ”

“ In honour of his beauteous Alvida?
Come hither, swain; what is it that thou cravest?
Adam. Faith, sir, nothing, but to speak a few sentences to your worship.
Rasni. Say, what is it?
Adam. I am sure, sir, you have heard of the spirits that walk in the city here.
Rasni. Ay, what of that?
Adam. Truly, sir, I have an oration to tell you of one of them; and this it is.
Alvi. Why goest not forward with thy tale?
Adam. Faith, mistress, I feel an imperfection in my voice, a disease that often troubles me; but, alas, easily mended; a cup of ale or a cup of wine will serve the turn. ”

“ Pater Cœlestis. Then thou are blameless, and the fault thou layest to me?
Adam. Nay, all I ascribe to my own imbecility.
No fault in thee Lord but in my infirmity,
And want of respect in such gifts as thou gavest me.
Pater Cœlestis. For that I put thee at thine own liberty,
Thou oughtest my goodness to have in more regard.
Adam. Avoid it I cannot, thou layest it to me so hard.
Lord, now I perceive what power is in man,
And strength of himself, when thy sweet grace is absent,
He must needs but fall, do he the best he can,
And endanger himself, as appeareth evident ”

“ So he was called Adam, and to that world about him he was the first of men—a man-child alone. Heaven sent him no Eve for a companion, but all earth, horse and foot, was at his feet. As soon as he was old enough to appear in public he held a levée, and Strickland’s sixty policemen, with their sixty clanking sabres, bowed to the dust before him. When his fingers closed a little on Imam Din’s sword-hilt they rose and roared till Adam roared too, and was withdrawn. ”

“ When God abstracted that seventh or ninth rib from Adam, and fashioned a woman of it, the result was, entre nous, nothing to boast of. I have ever ceased to regret that Adam did not wake up in time to thwart that hazardous experiment. It may have been necessary to introduce some tragic element into our lives, and if that was the intention, I admit that the means were ingenious. To my mind the only hope of salvation for the human race lies in its gradual emancipation from that baleful passion which draws men and women so irresistibly to each other. ”

“ In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.” ”

“ For as those whose business it is to defend the doctrine of providence do so by means of arguments which are not to be despised, [651] so also the subjects of Adam and his son will be philosophically dealt with by those who are aware that in the Hebrew language Adam signifies man; and that in those parts of the narrative which appear to refer to Adam as an individual, Moses is discoursing upon the nature of man in general. ”

“ His soul swells with indignation over some whom he styles materialists, and whom he accuses of manufacturing scripture. Thou that sayest a man should not, dost thou? Nothing is said of the “creation of a spirit” in connection with the 62formation of Adam’s body. The body having been formed, God, by an agency, not created for the purpose, but already existing with himself, endowed it with life, and Adam became a living soul. ”

“ Once, as I urgently besought her to do me the favour of disclosing to me this mystery, she began, after the manner of philosophers, to speak in similitude: she said the ens spirituale was that without which no man could exist. It was common to all, to rich and poor alike. Adam brought it with him out of Paradise, and in it lay a nourishing principle of life attenuated in water and exhaled in air. I will not refer to other enigmas, which she knew how to propound from the writings of philosophers. ”

“ But do thou hearken to my speech and obey me in that I shall say to thee and gainsay me not." He replied, "I hear and I obey: in me there is none opposition." Then said she, "Go to the Khan and, when my husband cometh to thee and inviteth thee, say to him, 'O my brother, a son of Adam is apt to be burdensome, and when his visits grow over frequent, both generous and niggard loathe him. [FN#421] How then shall I go with thee every night and lie I and thee, on the saloon? An thou wax not chagrined with me, thy Harim will bear me grudge, for that I hinder thee from thine. ”

“ Adam sees mankind rapidly nearing the time when the last feeble spark of human life will be extinguished. The globe of the sun, shorn of its rays, so that Adam takes its blood-red disc for the moon, sheds its dim light upon a frozen world. The last men of the race, a few degenerate Esquimaux, are dragging out a miserable existence. When Adam arrives among them they take him for a god, and request that he would see that there were fewer Esquimaux but more seals.
So this is the goal to which all his struggles and aspirations are to lead, Adam thinks. ”

“ Ninevites, Egyptians, Jews, Romans, and with these all the modern nations of Europe, are but the varieties of the central race that have retained in greatest perfection the original traits,—I do not see how we are to avoid the conclusion that this Caucasian type was the type of Adamic man. Adam, the father of mankind, was no squalid savage of doubtful humanity, but a noble specimen of man ”

“ Thus Adam, fresh from the hand of God, full of knowledge and intelligence, and holiness and love, was left, it would appear—but with one commandment, the test of his integrity—to worship and glorify God as his own heart and mind dictated; while the Jews, coming out of Egypt, sunk in ignorance, given to idolatry, perverse in will and affections, were dealt with as babes, albut without mind and without heart. ”