Giant minds held mighty powers in abeyance. Before the strong will of men of the first ten centuries few forces could stand. As the plane to which it was possible for him to attain was perfection, so the level to which he descended was confusion itself. Men’s lives, instead of being narrowed by the brief span of threescore years and ten, were measured by centuries; and intellects, mighty by birth, had time as well as power to expand. The man of seventy was then but a lad, with life and all its possibilities spread out before him. Adam lived to see his children to the eighth generation; and when we think that from his own lips Enoch learned the story of the fall, of the glories of the Eden home; when we bear in mind that Enoch probably saw this same ancestor laid in the earth, there to molder to dust, we better understand the relation he desired to sustain to his God. After a life of three hundred years, in which, the Sacred Record says, he “walked with God,” earth’s attraction grew so slight that he himself was taken into heaven. This was less than sixty years after the death of Adam. Passing beyond the gate of Eden, two classes of minds developed. Clear and distinct as light from darkness was the difference between the two. Cain, by exalting his own reasoning powers, accepted the logic of Satan. Admitting the physical plane to be the proper basis for living, he lost all appreciation of spiritual things, and depended wholly upon feeling. True, for a time he adhered to the form of worship, coming week by week to the gate of Eden to offer sacrifice; but his eye of faith was blind. When he saw his brother’s sacrifice accepted, a feeling of hatred sprang up in his breast, and, raising his hand, he took that brother’s life.
Men are startled at the rapidity of the descent from Edenic purity to a condition where murder was easy, but it was the natural result of the educational system chosen by Cain. Reason exalted above faith makes man like the engine without the governor.
Character developed in the worldly school
Murder, however, was but one result of the decision made by Cain. He fled from the presence of God, and, with his descendants built the cities of the East. Physical needs predominated, so that the whole attention of this people was turned to the gratification of fleshly desires. Pride increased, love of wealth was a ruling passion; the artificial took, more and more, the place once occupied by the natural. In the place of God-worship was self-worship, or paganism. This was the religious aspect, and here are to be found the first worshipers of the sun, the human progenitors of the modern papacy.
Affects government
As there was a change in religion, so there was a change in government. There could no longer be a theocracy, the father of the family being the high priest unto God; for God had been lost sight of, and his place was filled by man himself. Hence, these descendants of Cain flocked together into cities, where the strong bore rule over the weak, and thus developed an absolute monarchy, which is perpetuated to-day in the kingdoms of eastern Asia.
The education which upheld paganism in religion and monarchy in government was the same as that which in later days controlled Greece, and is known by us to-day as Platonism. It is but another name for an education which exalts the mind of man above God, and places human philosophy ahead of divine philosophy.
Origin of false philosophy
The philosophy which was thus exalted,—this science falsely so-called,—deified nature, and would to-day be known as evolution. You think the name a modern one. It may be, but the philosophy antedates the flood, and the schools of those men before the flood taught for truth the traditions of men as truly as they are taught to-day.