Essays in Literature and HistoryFroude, James Anthony
History
Essays in Literature and History
Froude, James Anthony
History; Literature
nor unruly appetite, nor any change or infirmity, was
pure as the pure immortal substance of the unfallen
angels. But with the fatal apple all this fair scene
passed away, and creation as it seemed was hopelessly
and irretrievably ruined. Adam sinned--no matter
how--he sinned; the sin was the one terrible fact:
moral evil was brought into the world by the only
creature who was capable of committing it. Sin entered
in, and death by sin; death and disease, storm and
pestilence, earthquake and famine. The imprisoned
passions of the wild animals were let loose, and earth
and air became full of carnage; worst of all, maws
animal nature came out in gigantic strength, the carnal
lusts, unruly appetites, jealousies, hatred, rapine, and
murder; and then the law, and with it, of course,
breaches of the law, and sin on sin. The seed of Adam
was infected in the animal change which had passed
over his person, and every child, therefore, thenceforth
naturally engendered in his posterity, was infected with
the curse which he had incurred. Every material
organization thenceforward contained in itself the
elements of its own destruction, and the philosophic
conclusions of Aristotle were accepted and explained by
theology. Already, in the popular histories, those who
were infected by disease were said to be bound by
Satan; madness was a "possession" by his spirit, and
the whole creation from Adam till Christ groaned and
travailed under Satan's power. The nobler nature in
man still made itself felt; but it was a slave when it
ought to command. It might will to obey the higher
law, but the law in the members was over strong for it
and bore it down. This was the body of death which
philosophy detected but could not explain, and from
which Christianity now came forward with its magnificent
promise of deliverance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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