Marigold

When God made man, we are next given to understand he paused and, seemingly, he thought. Up to then he somewhat rushed it—the Bible tells us so—and in the rapid race one thing had been forgotten—Woman. But the loving God never yet forgot a thing—even German thinkers tell us that—except the little blue-eyed flower, that gained thereby the loveliest name that coarser sentiment ignores for something showier.

No, last of all came woman—in orthodox religion, the Afterthought. And Adam most thoughtfully had chanced upon an extra rib—in the haste, no doubt, they hadn’t counted them. So Adam slept, and woke to find the whole world altered. Thus gracefully, unwittingly, the world’s great sage paid the unconscious compliment—erring too much on the other side. Man came from dust—woman from flesh and blood and actual bone, so says the Bible—high in the scale of general development. And for the privilege, the right of “entry,” how dearly she has paid! Man never knows—man perhaps will never know. For Eve was made whilst Adam slept. He should have been awake. Eve was born whilst Adam slept—then as now. And Eve brought Trouble—the rickety ladder before which Jacob’s was a child’s toy, and the ladder led to Heaven, and many and many a time it fell and led to Hell.

Eve, wide-eyed and untutored, except for certain instincts inherited from man. Eve knowing very little of herself except what man told her; and he—why, he slept whilst she was born—how should he know? And all the time has Eve looked up to man, and God has stood aside—the Afterthought.

And saddest thing of all perhaps—that now the men and women quarrel on equality—equality of sexes—showing how ineffectual is that common chord they miscall love. Think of that little vexing word that rankles in the minds of modern women—the word “Obey.” Think of it. That the Church itself should be so blind as to set a man where God should be! The obedience of the Free Spirit is given to God and God alone—who dares say otherwise? And God’s laws are so simple, kind, and full of love—a wiping-out of self, the training of a woman’s heart, a mother’s gentleness and strength. What more would man have? Some courtesan—polished or otherwise—to trick him when she fawns? To cow him when her tongue is loose in ribald fury?

Let no woman speak then of the word “obey” insulting her. What if it does? The word “obey” goes deeper. It strikes at the authority of God, and has done all the ages down. And now “woman” rises and says, with a womanly desire to squabble with the man, “I’ll obey man no longer—I’ll obey myself.” And God stands by—the Afterthought.

So much for Genesis and the Matrimonial Service.

Suppose you and I go our own way and “believe” to please ourselves.

Suppose we think Adam and Eve were two little monkeys—not big gorillas, they are so very, very plain.

Suppose—no; you are locked in, you cannot get away—suppose, suppose one day Eve felt weak and not at all well, and, instead of getting better, she went on day after day. Then Eve would learn what sadness was—a dull, unintelligible feeling to her, poor little animal—but still a real one. And Adam, being a good little husband as monkey husbands go, would feel in his little monkey heart that Eve was—well, he’d have to scratch his little monkey head because he hadn’t learnt to talk—not even to say that little tiny word called “sad.”

Eve’s suffering was the first tiny ray of light on the Dark Path—very tiny, no doubt, but with a tiny influence of refinement. Man’s thumbs developed later.

Now listen! Hark! That is thunder cracking over the Silent Forest. See that forked lightning, like a sword flashed into the dense black night. What if a tree falls? Listen the poor cramped souls what they pray for—air—God’s air and light.

Adam and Eve—or, ages long before them, great Darwin’s monkey species—who dares presume to laugh? Adam and Eve hidden among the other animals like needles in a haystack—Adam and Eve meaning man.

Who made them? The God of beauty and love? Oh! tear away that veil and see things as they are. Watch animals—their jealousy, their greed—the way they prey on one another, the monotonous and soulless day. Many are beautiful, some most repulsive. Think seriously about them, and they make you sad—unutterably sad, like their own weird voices in that strange and universal minor key. You say it is because a curse has come upon them—that in the first place they were innocent and gentle too. If it be so, what a disgraceful mull that God omnipotent has made of His creation—within so short a time everything tainted that once was good. Could God so err with more than human foolishness? Could God so err, and pander to the Devil, as, the good books say, unconsciously He has done? Oh, sacrilegious thought! Who made the world? The world of Living Things? Who made it? God, I will grant you—but which God? The God—Gods if you will—of Hell.

And Man—the Animal as other animals, lost like a needle in a haystack—ugly and soulless. The Animal with possibilities. Now look on Adam and on Eve, the first gleam of light gained by continuous suffering, not wounds in a free fight. And though Adam gained thus much from Eve, he never saw it, but treated her contemptuously—as through that very suffering and weakness his inferior. And that picture. Think of it, if you have any time for thought. The long, long ages back—the wild, illimitable forests, the jungles that obscured the pure blue sky, the savage, lustful sighs of the great lion, the whining growl of the sinuous tiger, the gliding, silent serpent, the animals innumerable, see how they come in phantom form before your eye. The wicked, impish monkey—most hideous perhaps of all—the subtle master-jest of Hell. And by the side of it—hidden, almost heartrendingly hidden—its savage, impish cousin Man—at present unknown—one among many animals. And look! One day, like Satan into Paradise, came Light—the Spirit of Light and Purity, with the magnet Heaven’s greatest scientists had taken years to mould, made to attract the weak spot—in the Hell-entangled maze. And the weak spot was Eve, and, through Eve, Adam. And so Eve brought suffering in the world, the real suffering, and thereby incurred Hell’s displeasure, and was thereby made the slave of man.

Read Genesis, that little chapter Topsy Turvy, it explains it all.

And what was Hell about to let the other spirits in? It had none of Heaven’s “man-theorised” omnipotence. It stood to fight the even fight, by skill and skill alone.

So now you know a little about Eve. Has it tired you? Do you like her less because she once went about like a little monkey, instead of à la Milton—I mean a monkey moderate-sized, of course—but they’re so ugly.

And the spirit has done the rest. The spirit that Professor Drummond, one of God’s latter-day disciples, has learned plays such a great part in the world’s sad history.