she carried with her from
Paradise. Planted outside by her hand, it grew to a great tree, under
which Abel was killed; at a later time it was used in building the most
holy place of Solomon's temple; and finally it yielded the beams out of
which the cross was made! Another legend says that, after the Fall,
God rooted out the Tree of Knowledge, and flung it over the wall of
Paradise. A thousand years after it was found by Abraham, none the worse
for its long absence from the soil. He planted it in his garden, and
while doing so he was informed by a voice from heaven that this was the
tree on whose wood the Redeemer should be crucified.

Space does not allow us to dwell at length on the Paradise Myths of
other ancient peoples, which singularly resembled that of the Jews.
Formerly it was alleged that these were all corruptions of the Genesaic
story. But it is now known that most of them date long anterior to the
very existence of the Jewish people. As Kalisch says, "they belonged to
the common traditionary lore of the Asiatic nations." The Bible story of
Paradise is derived almost entirely from the Persian myth. It was after
contact with the reformed religion of Zoroaster, during their captivity,
that the remnant of the Jews who returned to Palestine collated their
ancient literature, and revised it in accordance with their new ideas.
The story of Eve and her Apple is, as every scholar knows, an oriental
myth slightly altered by the Jewish scribes to suit the national taste,
and has absolutely no claims on our credence. And if this be so, the
doctrine of the Fall collapses, and down comes the whole Christian
structure which is erected upon it.

THE BIBLE DEVIL.

BIBLE ROMANCES.--4.

By G. W. FOOTE.

The Christian Godhead is usually spoken and written of as a Trinity,
whereas it is in fact a Quaternion, consisting of God the Father, God
the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and God the Devil. The Roman Catholics add
yet another, Goddess the Virgin Mary. God the Devil, whom this _Romance_
treats of so far as his history is contained in the Bible, is popularly
supposed to be inferior to the other persons of the Godhead. In reality,
however, he is vastly their superior both in wisdom and in power. For,
whereas they made the world, he has appropriated it almost entirely to
himself; and, whereas they who created all its inhabitants, have only
been able to lay down a very narrow-gauge railway to the Kingdom of
Heaven, he ha