Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/57

Rh it would seem that Adam belonged to our class, to that which is inferior and ignorant: he knew not how to read, to write, nor to speak elegantly. God gave him an occupation which suited his spirit; and he, being weak, submitted to it. But God orders now the same duty for men who are instructed in Scriptures and by the voice of conscience ; and these make a thousand objections to it, which God himself would not know how to answer.

18. Till now, we have spoken only of Adam's penance, and not that of Eve. Could not God in the beginning have created many thousands of people? Why did he create only these two, the husband and the wife, Adam and Eve? Evidently because in human life there are two principal affairs, two duties of equal value and importance: the one, that of motherhood; the other, that of manual labor. God said to Eve: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." And he said to Adam: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou knead bread; and thou shalt return to the ground whence thou wast taken."

19. Now I ask why, in the woman's penance only, there is no hidden meaning or allegory, but it is accomplished literally, as God pronounced it? The woman who lives in a poor hut and the empress on her throne, wearing a crown on her head, have the same destiny: they "bring forth children in sorrow." There