VML-4/1/00

[Guest guest]

This is the one fact that comes out of every scripture and of every

mythology that the man that is, is a degeneration of what he was.

This is the kernel of truth within the story of Adam's fall in the

Jewish scripture. This is again and again repeated in the scriptures

of the Hindus; the dream of a period which they call the Age of

Truth, when no man died unless he wished to die, when he could keep

his body as long as he liked, and his mind was pure and strong. There

was no evil and no misery; and the present age is a corruption of

that state of perfection. Side by side with this, we find the story

of the deluge everywhere. That story itself is a proof that this

present age is held to be a corruption of a former age by every

religion. It went on becoming more and more corrupt until the deluge

swept away a large portion of mankind, and again the ascending series

began. It is going up slowly again to reach once more that early

state of purity.

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Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but

coaxed downstairs a step at a time.- Mark Twain