Methuselah

“ If Methuselah had gone on at the rail-road pace at which we live in modern days--if he had crowded into each day of life the same amount of thought, sensation, act, event, which now fills up the space of every four-and-twenty hours, between seventeen and seventy, the whole history of the world, in its hundred thousand folio tomes, would have been a joke to the annals of his existence. But we make a great mistake if we think those old gentlemen, in any thing, lived as fast as we do ”

“ He led them out to the aviary, where Methuselah, in effect, was sitting on his perch, most tremulous and woebegone. His feathers shuddered visibly; he could no longer preen himself. “Listen to what he says,” the Frenchman exclaimed, in a very serious voice. “It is your last, last chance. If the secret is ever to be unravelled at all, by Methuselah’s aid, now is, without doubt, the proper moment to unravel it.”
Muriel put out her hand and stroked the bird gently. “Pretty Poll,” she said, soothingly, in a sympathetic voice. “Pretty Poll! Poor Poll! ”

“ In the eighth generation the discrepancy is less than in the others, and of a different kind. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begat, lived, before he begat his successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according to the Hebrew reading; and in our mss. again these years are added to the period after he begat his son; so that in this case also the sum-total is the same. And it is only in the ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech, Methuselah's son and Noah's father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum-total ”

“ And Enoch and his brethren prophesied unto the people about the calamities that should overtake them, that the world was to be destroyed by a flood; and there were provisions made for the continuance of the human family, and it was made known to Methuselah that his seed should be the medium through which should be perpetuated the human family upon the earth. And Methuselah was so very desirous to have this thing fulfilled that Noah, his grandson, who was the son of Lamech, was ordained by Methuselah when he was ten years old. ”

“ When Methuselah was a boy, manners were open and unaffected, and morals were pure and healthy.
But now all these things were changed. An evil called fashion had filled the minds of men and women with vanity. From the sinful land of Nod and from other pagan countries came divers tradesmen with purples and linens and fine feathers, whereby a wicked pride was engendered, and from these sinful countries, too, came frivolous manners that supplanted the guileless etiquette of the past. ”

“ Then Methuselah held sway among his kinsmen, and longest of all men enjoyed the pleasures of this world. He begat a multitude of sons and daughters before his death. And all the years of Methuselah were nine hundred and seventy winters, and he died.
(ll. 1224-1236) And Lamech, his son, succeeded him and kept the treasure. Long time he ruled the land. He lived an hundred and two winters, and begat children. ”

“ Osler celebrated his departure for England by proposing a wholesale slaughter of the innocent aged, Methuselah has had to take a seat on the sinners’ bench. It was formerly considered an honor to be an old man, even in Hades, but now it is a disgrace not to have died young. The other day, Cain, who is the bad boy of the underworld, gave Methuselah as a birthday present a collection of thirty-six bottles of chloroform, one for each sixty years of his earthly age. ”

“ After the translation of Enoch, Methuselah was proclaimed ruler of the earth by all the kings. He walked in the footsteps of his father, teaching truth, knowledge, and fear of God to the children of men all his life, and deviating from the path of rectitude neither to the right nor the left. [62] He delivered the world from thousands of demons, the posterity of Adam which he had begotten with Lilith, that she-devil of she-devils. ”

“ And Metzger was handsome. Even in his days of bloom, Albert could not boast of such manly beauty as his friend, Albert owned to himself. And this mysterious Swabian damsel had always been in love, with him ever since she was a child, she had said! All his pains disappeared. The romanticism of his youth was returning. Indeed, his body was wasted but his spirit, his heart, was as young as of yore! Real poets die young! Youth remains in their hearts even if they reach the age of Methuselah! ”

“ It is very interesting to find this story in the Memoirs of Methuselah owing to its marked resemblance to an anecdote related of General Washington, in which the youthful father of his country is represented as having acted in a like manner upon a later occasion.
I realize, however, that in writing one's memoirs one should not withhold the truth if there is to be any justification in the eyes of posterity for their existence, so I am not going to conceal anything from my readers that has any important bearing upon my character. ”

“ He was the man to whom God had made known his intention of drowning the world. By his efforts, the human race had been saved. He must have been acquainted with Methuselah for six hundred years, and Methuselah was about two hundred and forty years old, when Adam died. Noah must himself have known the history of mankind, and must have been an object of almost infinite interest ”

“ The longest liver must die at last. Neither youth nor age will discharge from that war, for that is the end of all men: none can challenge life by long prescription, nor make that a plea against the arrests of death. It is commonly supposed that Methuselah died a little before the flood; the Jewish writers say, "seven days before," referring to ch. vii. 10, and that he was taken away from the evil to come, which goes upon this presumption, which is generally received, that all the patriarchs mentioned in this chapter were holy good men. ”

“ Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch are all dead, and the number of patriarchs is reduced to three—Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. These alone are left at the time the decree concerning the destruction of the world is published. These three are compelled to witness and suffer the incredible malice of men, their idolatry, blasphemy, violent acts, foul passions, until finally Methuselah and Lamech are also called out of this life. There Noah was the only one to oppose the world rushing to destruction, and to make an effort to preserve righteousness and to repress unrighteousness. ”

“ But down at the pens—"
"What about the pens?" demanded Smalley.
"There's thirty-eight thousand mighty sick babies. And it's going to take a lot of know-how to heal them. Left untreated, they'll die. But, as you're the one who's interested—"
"Say, how do you know so much?" snarled Smalley.
"I happen to be a doctor," said Ole Doc.
"He is Ole Doc Methuselah!" said Hippocrates with truculence. "He is a Soldier of Light!" ”

“ Accepting these conclusions as correct, the highest recorded age, that of Methuselah, nine hundred years, will be reduced to about two hundred, an age that can hardly be called impossible in the face of such an abundance of reports, to which some men of comparatively modern times have approached, and which such substantial authorities as Buffon, Hufeland, and Flourens believed possible. ”

“ As for Methuselah’s secret, there was only one way, Felix thought, in which it could now prove of any use to them. When the actual day of their doom drew nigh, he might, perhaps, be tempted to try the fate which Nathaniel Cross, of Sunderland, had successfully courted. That might gain them at least a little respite. Though even so he hardly knew what good it could do him to be elevated for a while into the chief god of the island. It might not even avail him to save Muriel’s life ”

“ The single syllable helped Methuselah’s memory. “—Did proceed to stealthily pluck the bough, and, having shown the same to Fire and Water, the guardians of the Taboo, did boldly challenge to single combat the bodily tenement of the god, with spear and hatchet, provided for me in accordance with ancient custom by Fire and Water. In which combat, Heaven mercifully befriending me against my enemy, I did coom out conqueror; and was thereupon proclaimed Too-Keela-Keela myself, with ceremonies too many and barbarous to mention, lest I raise your gorge at them. ”

“ Methuselah told him the cause of his anxiety, and requested him to make the truth known to him. Enoch answered, and said: "The Lord will do a new thing in the earth. There will come a great destruction on the earth, and a deluge for one year. This son who is born unto thee will be left on the earth, and his three children will be saved with him, when all mankind that are on the earth shall die. And there will be a great punishment on the earth, and the earth will be cleansed from all impurity. ”

“ Now if Methuselah had been worried and plagued by Lamech, he was more than compensated therefor by this baby grandson, whom he found to be, aside from all prejudices, the prettiest and the smartest child he had ever seen. Old father Adam, who was now turned of his ninth century, tottered over to see the baby, and he, too, allowed that it was an uncommonly bright child. And dear old grandma Eve declared that there was an expression about the upper part of the little Noah's face that reminded her very much of the soft-eyed boy she lost 800 years ago. ”

“ Progression was slow in those days compared with our own, when a man can get as much event into fifty years as Methuselah did into a thousand. The journey took three hours at the least; but it seemed short to Emily, for at the end of the first hour they were overtaken by Mr. Marlow on horseback, and he rode along with them to the gate of Mrs. Hazleton's house. He was an admirable horseman, for he had not only a good but a graceful seat, and his handsome figure and fine gentlemanly carriage never appeared to greater advantage than when he did his best to be a centaur. ”

“ Menachem, saying, This one shall comfort us in our works and miserable toil in the earth, which God had cursed.
15 And the child grew up and was weaned, and he went in the ways of his father Methuselah, perfect and upright with God.
16 And all the sons of men departed from the ways of the Lord in those days as they multiplied upon the face of the earth with sons and daughters, and they taught one another their evil practices and they continued sinning against the Lord. ”

“ In the times of Methuselah there must have been a very different law of mortality, perhaps one death in a hundred; the length of life was greater; and probably the power of parentage lasted longer. The average number of children might be about twenty in a family instead of four; and the doubling of population would take place in ten or twenty years, instead of as now in seventy or eighty. Antediluvians were long-lived because their long lives were needed for the replenishment of the earth ”

“ He was a headstrong man, Enoch was. He sneered at me and alluded to me as a fresh young gosling, because he was 300 years older than I was. He has received the reward of the willful, and verily the doom of the smart Aleck is his."
Methuselah now cast about him for some occupation which would take up his attention and assuage his wild, passionate grief over the loss of his father. He entered into the walks of men and learned their ways. It was at this time that he learned the pernicious habit of using tobacco. ”

“ For consider what confidence Seth had towards God, and Abel, and Enos, and Enoch, and Methuselah, and Noah, the first lovers of righteousness, and the first of the first-born children who are written in heaven, [3] being thought worthy of the kingdom, as a kind of first-fruits of the plants for salvation, coming out as early fruit to God. ”

“ The remarkable longevity of this trio of Methuselahs was attributed, in the case of the two first mentioned, to their own “cure all” concoctions, and the last, to her scientific revelation of thinking that, there is no such thing as pain or death!
“In closing this review of historical events,” said the Professor looking around the auditorium, “there are a few other important happenings that bring us to the present decade. ”

“ It is also curious to see a skeptic like Metchnikoff giving serious consideration to the accounts of longevity given in the Pentateuch which many orthodox theologians are willing to concede as legendary. He balks, indeed, at Noah's nine hundred and fifty years and Methuselah's nine hundred and sixty-nine, but accepts as probable Aaron's one hundred and twenty-three years and Moses's one hundred and twenty, quoting the words of Jehovah: "My spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh ”

“ Meskingashir is resolvable into four elements, MES-KI-INGA [384] -SHIR, [385] “the hero” or “man who is great” or “exalted.” Translate this into Semitic Babylonian and it becomes Mutu-ša-elu, which is almost exactly Methuselah.
Enmeirgan becomes when translated into Semitic [Pg 268] Mutu-šalal-eqla, [386] and Mahalalel is a much closer transfer of the first two elements of this to Hebrew than are Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, Merodach-baladan, and Evil-merodach of the names Sin-akhi-irba, Ashur-akhi-iddina, Marduk-apal-iddin, and Amel-Marduk. ”

“ For unto God a thousand years are no more then one moment, and in his sight Methuselah lived no nearer one day then Abel, for all parts of time are alike unto him, unto whom none are referrible; and all things present, unto whom nothing is past or to come. And therefore, although we be measured by the Zone of time, and the flowing and continued instants thereof, do weave [11] at last a line and circle about the eldest: yet can we not thus commensurate the sphere of Trismegistus; or sum up the unsuccessive and stable duration of God.
CHAPTER IV
That there was no Rain-bow before the Flood. ”