Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1864-04-20
EARTEI.s OLDEST son.

EARTEE,S OLDEST SON.
}, The youth of the world was the season
!. :. of mans greatest age: perhaps also IT wa
the season of mans greatest wickedness
Three things we know with certainty
l. amidst all the darkness that hangs owe
the life of the antediluvians they lived
To great age, they rose to u great heigh
S of depravity, and, except Enoch, they al
died. The assurance of very long life
would be to any man great temptation
to sin, or great means of holiness mos
likely the former Because sentence Ggdias
ayl evi ,rork is not ereeuted speedily, therefor,
tie heart Of the sons Of men IS fsily set IN then
10 do era The character written for ouI
instruction of the race of man IN the
world before the food, tkaf epay magma
ton Of The Moagkts OF has heart ,sas only eva
continually, corresponds unerrincly with
the inspired declaration by the mouth OF
, Solomon. The sentence of death. defer
red for so many ges, was almost unknown,
and came at length to be utterly discred-
tied they thought not of it; nay, so
hardy and secure had long centuries of
vigorous existence made them. that, as
long as Adam lived, they might have
dreamed of indefinite centuries yet TO
come, the limit of mans life. in all proba-
biiity. not having been made the subject
of precise revelation. For more than sew
en- antediluvian generations no death Is
recorded in the scriptures. There may
] have been mortal diseases, and even the
crime of Cain may have been not unfre-
quently repeated, Tof tie earth leaS hfied
,citt riolclce
But, for aught we know, the funeral OF
Adam was the first which his posterity
attended for nearly a thousand years
There WAS, indeed. another funeral; the
murdered Abel was buried but the pa
rents were the only mourners. With his
own hands Adam ding the grave of his
youngest, best beloved son; with his own
hands he buried him; and Eve planted
the sacred enclosure with flowers, and
watered il with her tears. The simplest
things were then matters of revelation !;
death and its consequences were so little
known. that the angels would have to
show Adam what he must do with the
bleeding corpse of Abel; the language OF
Abraham, burg me- dead 0m stmy sight, could
only spring from experience for If death
left the bodies of those we love as uncor-
ru 9ted and so beautiful as life, we should
wish to keep them by US, though inani-
mate and lifeless. The ancient Egyptians
had strange custom of doing this, as it
was. They sometimes kept the dead bod
les of their friends standing upright in
their houses, embalmed so carefully, that
every feature remained as il was in life;
they kept them, Diodorus tells us, Sin
costly habitations, for the pleasure of be-
holding them for ever"
When Methusaleh was born, Adam was
six hundred and eighty-seyen years of
age When Adam died, Meihusaleh was
two hundred and eighty-two. The oldest
man lived in the society of the first man
80 years. Methusaleh was the grand
father of Noah; and when Noah was born,
Methusaleh was 369 years old. Methusa-
leh and Noah were therefore cotempO-
raries during the long space of GOO years.
Noah had never seen Adam the father
of the second race of mortals had never
seen the father of the first. But Lameech,
Noah's father, and the first born of Me
thusalsh, had lived, while Adam was yet
alive, % years; and he, as well as Me-
thusaleh, could describe 10 Noah, from
personal knowledge and recollection,
the teachings and the venerable grandeur
of the Father ofthem all.
The death of Adam took place Just
eighty-seVen years before Noah's BIRTH
OF the death of Eve no mention is made
in the Scriptures How long she remain
ed on earth with our great father, by what
angelic messengers or revelations from the
Almighty they were both prepared for
their departure. or what blessings and
prophetic warnings they left with poster
ity on leaving the world, we know not
OF all possible circumstances we have but
one. and that the universal record ofman.
he died Nor is the name of any woman
of the posteritY Of Adam, from Seth to
Noah, handed down TO us, nor any glimpse
of information as to the part which the
wives oftbe antediluyian patriarchs might
have played in the education of their
children Who was the mother of Ne
thusaleh, and what the lessons taught him |
in his infancy Was the help meet of
Enoch chosen for her piety and did she |
walk, like him, with God are questions |
which curiosity, pausing upon the life OF
the world before the flood, would be glad |
to have answered. But not ray of in /
formation comes down TO US, nor is even
a loop-hole left for conjecture, save that
the character of men like Enoch and /
Noah is sufficient ground for the suppo-
sition, that so far as their minds were left /
to be moulded by their mothers. the ex-
ample set before them, and the influence |
exerted upon them, must have been holy. |
And now, could we call up the shades
of Methusaleh. and converse with the old |
est man, what would be the lessons of his !
experience? Would they be greatly diff |
ferent from ours? Would the thoughts /
and feelings. the events and circumstan- |
ces of men whose life was of thousand |
wears duration, be very diverse from those |
of ordinary mortals, whose span is only
threescore years ano ten, or would one
little limit Of existence vary IRON theirs
only as miniature does from portrait,
where the features, the passions, the ex-
preston, are the same, and only the di-
mentions of the canvass, the size of the
painting, are different? The temptations
of Methusaleh must have been like ours
his christian conflict was the same his
faith was the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen. But
were his trials as heavy as ours, or has
the primeYal curse gathered strength in
the progress of six thousand years, not
known in the worlds infancy2 What
| indeed, was affiiction, disease, old age,
with the antediluvians Were their tri-
ais spread over a larger portion of exist
ence than ours? Did colds and fevers
rack the body with pain for time pro
portionately longer? Ere the close oflife,
did the keepers of the house tremble. and
the strong men bow themselves, and the
grinders cease because they were few, and
were those that looked out of the win
dows darkened? Was their infancy ex-
tended into our childhood,- and their
childhood into our manhood. so that their
youth was our age, and the child died
being an hundred years old? Was the
flight of time with them as rapid as with
US, and Notwithstanding their long life,
did they leave it with as strong unwil-
lingness, with as deep regret, with as many
plans incomplete, and purposes betrayed,
as we do Gus? The unerring truth of