of human action-that all his bones were formed as they now are, and all the relations of nerve, ligament, brain, and motion as they are to-day?

Looking back over the history of animal life from the lowest to the highest form, we find that there has been a slow and gradual development; a certain but constant relation between want and production; between use and form. The monera is said to be the simplest form of animal life that has yet been found. It has been described as "an organism without organs." It is a kind of structureless structure; a little mass of transparent jelly that can flatten itself out, and can expand and contract around its € food. It can feed without a mouth, digest without a stomach, walk without feet, and reproduce itself by simple division. By taking this monera as the commencement of animal life, or rather as the first animal, it is easy to follow the development of the organic structure through all the forms of life to man himself. In this way finally every muscle, bone, and joint, every organ, form, and function, may be accounted for. In this way, and in this way only, can the existence of rudimentary organs be explained. Blot from the human mind the ideas of evolution, heredity, adaptation, and the "survival of the fittest," with which it has been enriched by Lamarck, Goethe, Darwin, Haeckel, and Spencer, and all the facts in the history of animal life become utterly disconnected and meaningless. Shall we throw away all that has been discovered with regard to organic life, and in its place take the statements of one who lived in the rude morning of a barbaric day? Will anybody now contend that man was a direct and independent creation, and bears no relation to the animals below him? Belief upon this subject must be governed at last by evidence. Man cannot believe as he pleases. He can control his speech, and can say that he believes or disbelieves; but, after all, his will cannot depress or raise the scales with which his reason finds the worth and weight of

facts. If this is not so, investigation, evidence, judgment, and reason are but empty words.

ask again, How were Adam and Eve created? In one account they are created male and female, and apparently at the same time. In the next account Adam is made first, and Eve a long time afterwards, and from a part of the man. Did God, simply by his creative fiat, cause a rib slowly to expand, grow and divide into nerve, ligament, cartilage, and flesh? How was the woman created from a rib? How was man created simply from dust? For my part, I cannot believe this statement. I may suffer for this in the world to come; and may, millions of years hence, sincerely wish that I had never investigated the subject, but had been content to take the ideas of the dead. I do not believe that any deity works in that way. So far as my experience goes, there is an unbroken procession of cause and effect. Each thing is a necessary link in an infinite chain; and I cannot conceive of this chain being broken even for one instant. Back of the simplest monera there is a cause, and back of that another, and so on, it seems to me, forever. In my philosophy I postulate neither beginning nor ending.

If the Mosaic account is true, we know how long man has been upon this earth. If that account can be relied on, the first man was made about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. Sixteen hundred and fifty-six years after the making of the first man the inhabitants of the world, with the exception of eight people, were destroyed by a flood. This flood occurred only about four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven years ago. If this account is correct, at that time only one kind of men existed. Noah and his family were certainly of the same blood. It therefore follows that all the differences we see between the various races of men have been caused in about four thousand years. If the account of the deluge is true, then since that event all the ancient kingdoms

of the earth were founded, and their inhabitants passed through all the stages of savage, nomadic, barbaric, and semicivilised life; through the epochs of Stone, Bronze, and Iron; established commerce, cultivated the arts, built cities, filled them with palaces and temples, invented writing, produced a literature, and slowly fell to shapeless ruin. We must believe that all this has happened within a period of four thousand years.

From representations found upon Egyptian granite made more than three thousand years ago, we know that the negro was as black, his lips as full, and his hair as closely curled then as now. If we know anything, we know that there was at that time substantially the same difference between the Egyptian and the negro as now. If we know anything, we know that magnificent statues were made in Egypt four thousand years before our era that is to say, about six thousand years ago. There was at the World's Exposition, in the Egyptian department, a statue of King Cephren known to have been chiselled more than six thousand years ago. In other words, if the Mosaic account must be believed, this statue was made before the world. We also know, if we know anything, that men lived in Europe with the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyena. Among the bones of those animals have been found the stone hatchets and flint arrows of our ancestors. In the caves where they lived have been discovered the remains of these animals that had been conquered, killed, and devoured as food hundreds of thousands of years ago.

If these facts are true, Moses was mistaken. For my part, I have infinitely more confidence in the discoveries of to-day than in the records of a barbarous people. It will not now do to say that man has existed upon this earth for only about six thousand years. One can hardly compute in his imagination the time necessary for man to emerge from the barbarous state, naked and helpless,

surrounded by animals far more powerfu than he, to progress and finally creat the civilisations of India, Egypt, an Athens. The distance from savagery t Shakespeare must be measured, not L hundreds, but by millions of years.

XIV. SUNDAY.

"And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and h rested on the seventh day from all hi work which he had made. And Go blessed the seventh day, and sanctifie it because in it he had rested from al his work which God created and made.

The great work had been accomplished -the world, the sun, and moon, and al the hosts of heaven were finished; the earth was clothed in green, the seas were filled with life, the cattle wandered by the brooks, insects with painted wing were in the happy air, Adam and Eve were making each other's acquaintance and God was resting from his work He was contemplating the achievement of a week.

Because he rested on that day he sanctified it, and for that reason, and for that alone, it was by the Jews considered a holy day. If he only rested on that day, there ought to be some account of what he did the following Monday. Did he rest on that day? do after he got rested? Has he done anything in the way of creation since Saturday evening of the first week?

What did hel

It is now claimed by the "scientific " Christians that the "days" of creation were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours each, but immensely long periods of time. If they are right, then how long was the seventh day? Was that, too, a geologic period covering thousands of ages? That cannot be, because Adam and Eve were created the Saturday evening before, and according to the Bible that was about five thousand eight hundred and eighty-three years ago. cannot state the time exactly, because there have been as many as one hundred and forty different opinions given by learned Biblical students as to the time

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between the creation of the world and the birth of Christ. We are quite certain, however, that, according to the Bible, it is not more than six thousand years since the creation of Adam. From this it would appear that the seventh day was not a geologic epoch, but was, in fact, a period of less than six thousand years, and probably of only twenty-four

hours.

The theologians who "answer" these things may take their choice. If they take the ground that the "days" were periods of twenty-four hours, then geology will force them to throw away the whole account. If, on the other hand, they admit that the days were vast "periods," then the sacredness of the Sabbath must be given up.

There is found in the Bible no intimation that there was the least difference in the days. They are all spoken of in the same way. It may be replied that our translation is incorrect. If this be so, then only those who understand Hebrew have had a revelation from God, and all the rest have been deceived.

How is it possible to sanctify a space of time? Is rest holier than labour? If there is any difference between days, ought not that to be considered best in which the most useful labour has been performed?

Of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred Sabbath" is the most absurd. The idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the time! To think that we can please an infinite being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the perfumed fields! Why should God hate to see a man happy? Why should it excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking, laughing, and loving? Nature works on that "sacred" day. The earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, the buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song. Why should we look sad and think about death, and hear about hell? Why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy?

A poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood, a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength for toils to come. And his weary wife needs a breath of sunny air, away from street and wall, amid the hill, or by the margin of the sea, where she can sit and prattle with her babe, and fill with happy dreams the long, glad day.

The "Sabbath" was born of asceticism, hatred of human joy, fanaticism, ignorance, egotism of priests, and the cowardice of the people. This day, for thousands of years, has been dedicated to superstition, to the dissemination of mistakes, and the establishment of falsehoods. Every Freethinker, as a matter of duty, should violate this day. He should assert his independence, and do all within his power to wrest the Sabbath from the gloomy Church, and give it back to liberty and joy. Freethinkers should make the Sabbath a day of mirth and music-a day to spend with wife and child-a day of games, and books, and dreams-a day to put fresh flowers above our sleeping dead, a day of memory and hope, of love and rest.

Why should we in this age of the world be dominated by the dead? Why should barbarian Jews, who went down to death and dust three thousand years ago, control the living world? Why should we care for the superstition of men who began the Sabbath by paring their nails, "beginning at the fourth finger, then going to the second, then to the fifth, then to the third, and ending with the thumb"? How pleasing to God this must have been. The Jews were very careful of these nail parings. They who threw them upon the ground were wicked, because Satan used them to work evil upon the earth. They believed that upon the Sabbath souls were allowed to leave purgatory and cool their burning souls in water. Fires were neither allowed to be kindled nor extinguished, and upon that day it was

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a sin to bind up wounds. "The lame might use a staff, but the blind could not." So strict was the Sabbath kept that at one time, "if a Jew on a journey was overtaken by the 'sacred day' in a wood, or on the highway, no matter where, nor under what circumstances, he must sit down," and there remain until the day was gone. "If he fell down in the dirt, there he was compelled to stay until the day was done." For violating the Sabbath the punishment was death, for nothing short of the ́offender's blood could satisfy the wrath of God. There are, in the Old Testament, two reasons given for abstaining from labour on the Sabbath-the resting of God and the redemption of the Jews from the bondage of Egypt.

Since the establishment of the Christian religion the day has been changed, and Christians do not regard the day as holy upon which God actually rested, and which he sanctified. The Christian Sabbath, or the "Lord's Day," was legally established by the murderer Constantine, because upon that day Christ was supposed to have risen from the dead.

It is not easy to see where Christians got the right to disregard the direct command of God, to labour on the day he sanctified, and keep as sacred a day upon which he commanded men to labour. The Sabbath of God is Saturday, and, if any day is to be kept holy, that is the one, and not the Sunday of the Christian. Let us throw away these superstitions, and take the higher, nobler ground, that every day should be rendered sacred by some loving act, by increasing the happiness of man, giving birth to nobler thoughts, putting in the path of toil some flower of joy, helping the unfortunate, lifting the fallen, dispelling gloom, destroying prejudice, defending the helpless, and filling homes with light and love.

XV. THE NECESSITY FOR A GOOD MEMORY.

It must not be forgotten that there are two accounts of the creation in Genesis. The first account stops with the third

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verse of the second chapter. The chapters have been improperly divided. the original Hebrew the Pentateuch was neither divided into chapters nor verses. There was not even any system of punctuation. It was written wholly with consonants, without vowels, and without any marks, dots, or lines to indicate them. These accounts are materially different, and both cannot be true. Let us see wherein they differ.

The second account of the creation begins with the fourth verse of the second chapter, and is as follows :

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

"And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

"But there went up a mist from the carth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

"And the Lord God formed man off the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

"And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

"And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became four heads.

"The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

"And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

"And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

"And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward

the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

"And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat :

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.

"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

"And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him.

"And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

"And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

"And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.

"And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." Order of Creation in the First Account: 1. The heaven and the earth and light were made.

2. The firmament was constructed and the waters divided.

3. The waters were gathered into seas -and then came dry land, grass, herbs, and fruit trees.

4. The sun and the moon. He made the stars also.

5. Fishes, fowls, and great whales. 6. Beasts, cattle, and every creeping thing, man and woman.

Order of Creation in the Second Account: 1. The heavens and the earth.

2. A mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 3. Created a man out of dust, by the name of Adam.

4. Planted a garden eastward in Eden, and put the man in it.

5. Created the beasts and fowls. 6. Created a woman out of one of the man's ribs.

In the second account man was made before the beasts and fowls. If this is true, the first account is false. And if the theologians of our time are correct in their view that the Mosaic day means thousands of ages, then, according to the second account, Adam existed millions of years before Eve was formed. must have lived one Mosaic day before there were any trees, and another Mosaic day before the beasts and fowls were created. Will some kind clergyman tell us upon what kind of food Adam subsisted during these immense periods?

He

In the second account a man is made, and the fact that he was without a helpmeet did not occur to the Lord God until a couple of "vast periods" afterwards. The Lord God, suddenly coming to an appreciation of the situation, said : "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him."

Now, after concluding to make " an helpmeet" for Adam, what did the Lord God do? Did he at once proceed to make a woman? No. What did he do? He made the beasts, and tried to induce Adam to take one of them for 'an helpmeet." If I am incorrect, read the following account, and tell me what it means:

"And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.

"And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every