we must reserve for our pamphlet
on "The Bible Devil," The curse of the woman was that she should bring
forth children in pain and sorrow, and that the man should rule over
her. With her present physiological condition, woman must always have
suffered during conception as she now does; and therefore Delitzsch
infers that her structure must have undergone a change, although he
cannot say in what respect He dwells also on the "subjection" of woman,
which "the religion of Revelation" has made by degrees more endurable;
probably forgetting that the Teutonic women of ancient times were
regarded with veneration, long before Christianity originated. Besides,
the subordination of the female is not peculiar to the human race, but
is the general law throughout the animal world.

Adam's curse was less severe. He was doomed to till the ground, and to
earn his bread by the sweat of his face. Most of us would rather take
part in the great strenuous battle of life, than loll about under the
trees in the Garden of Eden, chewing the cud like contemplative cows.
What men have had to complain of in all ages is, not that they have to
earn their living by labour, but that when the sweat of their faces has
been plenteously poured forth the "bread" has too often not accrued to
them as the reward of their industry.

Orthodox Christianity avers that all the posterity of Adam and Eve
necessarily participate in their curse, and the doctrine of Original Sin
is taught from all its pulpits. Only by baptism can the stains of our
native guilt be effaced; and thus the unbaptized, even infants, perish
everlastingly, and hell, to use the words of a Protestant divine, holds
many a babe not a span long. A great Catholic divine says--"Hold thou
most firmly, nor do thou in any respect doubt, that infants, whether
in their mothers' wombs they begin to live and then die, or when, after
their mothers have given birth to them, they pass from this life without
the sacrament of holy baptism, will be punished with the everlasting
punishment of eternal fire." Horror of horrors! These men call sceptics
blasphemers, but they are the real blasphemers when they attribute to
their God such supreme injustice and cruelty. What should we think of
a legislator who proposed that the descendants of all thieves should be
imprisoned, and the descendants of all murderers hung? We should think
that he was bad or mad. Yet this is precisely analogous to the conduct
ascribed to God,