Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/27

Rh If we admit that what we call Holy Scriptures is not the work of God, but of men, and if, on the other hand, while it is purely and simply the work of men, it is regarded as coming from God, let us not forget there is a reason for its continued existence.

It is easy to perceive this reason.

Superstitious men call it God's work because it is more profound than all human science, and because, notwithstanding continual attacks upon its verity, it remains to this day without losing its divine authority. It is called divine, and is transmitted to us, because it contains the greatest possible wisdom. And this is true of the greater part of what we call the Bible.

This in fact, and in a literal sense, is what Bondareff takes for his text, in proclaiming the commandment that the human race has forgotten, or has so interpreted as to destroy its force.

One usually regards this sentence of God and all Adam's life in paradise as a real and historic event, although we should also give it an allegorical aspect, as showing the contrary tendencies that God has placed in human nature.

Man fears death and is subject to it. One who knows of neither good nor evil would seem to us most happy, and yet we are eager to know everything. Man loves the pleasures and the gratifying of his wants which bring no pain with them, and yet it is by pain and suffering that he and all his race attain life.