Adam - Glenn Conjurske

Adam

by Glenn Conjurske

Being very much of a contemplative cast of mind, my meditations have often carried me back in time to the great preachers of yesteryear, and in my reveries I have wondered, if I could turn back the hands of time, and go back to listen to one of the great preachers of history, which one would I choose? George Whitefield? By all the accounts which I have read, none other has ever equalled him in eloquence and power, and yet there are others who have a peculiar charm for me. There is Sam Hadley, the embodiment of the love of Christ for the most unlovely. And Gipsy Smith, the very thought of whose childlike spirit draws tears from my eyes. And the great Charles Wesley, who combines the traits of all three of these, and adds his own exuberance of spirit, which is hardly to be found elsewhere. But even from all of these my heart turns to the rugged and rustic James Axley, whose wit and power and uncouth honesty must be the admiration of every faithful preacher. Then to the simple Henry Moorhouse, who could beat the love of God down into the hearts of men, preaching night after night from John 3:16. The result of my pleasant reverie is, I cannot decide.

I turn myself to another reverie, no less pleasing. If I could turn the hands of time yet further back, and sit down in leisurely conversation with one of the old Bible saints, which one would I choose? Would it be John the Baptist, my own hero, and the greatest of those born of women? Or the grand old Elijah, who stands like some great mountain peak in the middle of the Old Testament, in his solitary grandeur? My heart lingers here, but I cannot stay. Tempting as an interview with either of these would be, there is another whom I would choose. My choice is fixed on Adam. If I were obliged to choose between the women of the Bible, the choice must be between Mary and Eve, but ah! it would be a hard choice. But limiting the choice to men, my choice is fixed on Adam.

Of all the men who have ever lived—-certain Wesleyans notwithstanding—-Adam was the only man ever to know both the pristine purity of paradise, and the sinful heart of a sinner. He knew what it was to have no taint in his nature, and he knew what it was to be polluted throughout. He knew every thought and emotion of the transition from the one state to the other. What questions I would like to put to Adam! How many centuries-old theological disputes could be settled in a moment by a word from Adam! Wherein does our fallenness consist? What is the difference between our fallen and our unfallen state? What faculties were impaired in the fall, and exactly how were they affected? How were the emotions affected, the will, the memory, the physical frame? And what of the lower creatures? Did the bees freely give their honey before the fall? What did owls eat, and alligators? Did spiders build webs? Adam knew all this.

But we know nothing. We must grope and guess and read and pray and study and meditate and converse, and still after a lifetime of this how little do we know! Adam knew.

But did I say, “after a lifetime”? What do we know of a lifetime? Adam lived 930 years! Our threescore years and ten are but a passing shadow—-a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. What can we learn in our threescore years and ten? If we begin to learn what wisdom is, and where and how to find it, that is about all we can do, and we are carried off. We are all of us the merest children next to Adam. He began his life outside of paradise with more of wisdom that any of us can hope to gain in a lifetime, and then had nearly a millennium in which to build upon it. Nearly a millennium in which to observe and meditate—-in which to study human nature, and human actions, and human emotions, and human relationships—-in which to study causes and effects, and mistakes and consequences. He lived 930 years, and in those days when men had time to think, before the advent of a thousand modern conveniences and time-savers, which have filled our lives with constant bustle. Surely if ever there lived a man from whose lips we might learn wisdom, that man was Adam. What dwarfs and pygmies all of us must be next to Adam! And yet how proud is the present age of its enlightenment, its attainments, and its scholarship! Bring Adam on the stage, and how utterly would the attainments of this generation be contemned! Verily, we know in part.

It was the remark, I believe, of Archibald Alexander, that large libraries tend to teach us our ignorance. The existence of those shelves upon shelves of books ought to teach us how little we know. The most diligent application of a whole lifetime can only scratch the surface of a good library. It is good for us to know this. It is good for us also to meditate upon the wisdom of Adam, and to understand that we can never attain it. Men suppose themselves very superior today because they can make computers and space ships. Great attainments, no doubt, but Adam had better wisdom. He knew himself. An old proverb affirms, “No man knows himself until he has tasted of both fortunes.” Adam knew all. He knew paradise, and the curse. He knew innocence and sinfulness.

But I return from my reverie, deeply conscious that we shall never know as Adam did. And yet we may know much. We may know what we need to know. But we are severely hampered in the learning of it, by the dullness of our minds, the prejudices of our hearts, and the shortness of our years. It seems plain to me that there are vast fields of most important wisdom which in two thousand years the church of God has scarcely set foot on—-such as the distinct places of the soul and the spirit. These are not things beyond our reach, but things which can be learned, from the Scriptures and spiritual experience. To envy Adam will hardly help us, but to be keenly aware of our inferiority ought to stir us to earnest action. We cannot be what Adam was, but we can redouble our diligence, and get wisdom with all our getting.

Adam could doubtless teach us more wisdom in an hour than we can learn in a decade of study, but we cannot ask him. But I have hope that one day beyond this life I may yet sit down with Adam, and talk things over with him, saying, “This is how I understood the fall, the soul, the spirit, the emotions, the mind, the will, the nature of our sinfulness. Tell me how near the truth I was.” I fancy he will be glad to teach me what I know not.

Glenn Conjurske