Adam the Child

I have said that the characteristic of the Jewish Portraits is their derivation from the period of youth. Unlike any other national gallery, the Gallery of Judah has painted her sons by the light of morning. The traits it has selected are the qualities which other nations deem zot great — the qualities which mark the early hours. And this chord is struck at the very beginning, The Portrait on the threshold of the Gallery is that of a child. It has the physical height of a man, but its mental attitude is that of a child. It is a figure representative of all childhood — always, everywhere. It is professedly the first figure not only of the Hebrew race but of the race of Humanity; yet from one point of view it is

perhaps the least primitive of all forms. We often speak of the story of Adam as a very childish narrative. So it is; but why? Because it is a description of childhood itself. Childhood is a permanent element in the human race — as naive and artless to-day as it was in the world’s dawn. The man who painted Adam £uew he was painting a child; the simple question is, has he painted a representative child — a child that will stand either for Eden or for London? Has he succeeded in photographing that artlessness of thought, that naiveté of expression, that simplicity of action, which belong to the child normal, the child universal? Has he avoided the mistake of forgetting this artlessness, of ignoring this simplicity? Has he eliminated from life’s dawn all ideas which pertain only to the afternoon? Is his Picture, in short, childlike enough to be universal?

Do not imagine the delineation of a child’s portrait is an easy thing. It is precisely the work in which most galleries have failed. There have been two extremes to which the

human artist has been prone; he has either made too little of the child or he has made too much, The Old Pagan world erred on the first side. It underrated the importance of childhood as a subject for the gallery. To that old world the early years of life were no part of history. They were something to get through, something to surmount, something to outgrow. That the nursery was the making of the man did not enter into Pagan calculation. That the most important stage of education is that preceding the reign of the actual schoolmaster was an idea as yet beneath the sea. The disciples of Christ murmured at a child being put in the mzddle of their ring; but the disciples of a Pagan sage would have murmured if a child had been put in their ring at all. To them a child was the antithesis of wisdom, the opposite of philosophy. He was too sensuous for the Platonist, too weak for the Roman, too tiny a thing for the nations that moved in masses. It was only a corner of the gallery that the world we call heathen would assign to the figure of the child,

But if ancient Paganism spoiled the portrait of childhood by wxder-colouring, Medieval Christianity fell into the opposite extreme — it coloured too much. It put into its picture of ideal childhood more than belonged to it. Take its earlier portraits of the Babe of Bethlehem. What is their defect? It is just their transference to a child of the attributes of a man. The artist of that day, the historian of that day, thought he was magnzfying the childhood of Jesus by making it miraculous. He surrounded His head with a nimbus. He encircled His cradle with prodigies. He imprinted on His face what was meant to be an expression of glory, but what was really an expression of unnaturalness. He put a sagacious look in the eyes, a far-seeing thoughtfulness in the countenance. He stamped upon every feature the impress of a heavenly wisdom which, if it could only speak, would say wonderful things. It was a delineation intended to honour the childhood of Christ; in reality, it detracted from the swaddling bands of Bethlehem. It was a conception neither esthetic in art nor reverent in theology. It destroyed that very ideal which it was meant to nourish. It killed the child by letting in the man. It sacrificed the cradle by placing within it, not a babe, but a savant.

I have alluded to these errors with the view of showing that the task undertaken by the writer in Genesis was by no means an easy thing. We speak with much patronage of the simplicity of the culture implied in his narrative. My formula would rather be that the comparative maturity of his culture is shown by the simplicity of the portrayal. He has done what neither the Ancient Pagan world nor the Medizval Christian world succeeded in doing. He has painted a child — a real child, a type of all childhood. He has given us an absolute and accurate description of the simplicity of a child’s thought, of the crudeness of a child’s ideas, of the sequence of a child’s conceptions. Do you think he could have done this if he himself had not been already standing on the 47/7? Do you imagine that it is in the

valley we see the valley? No, it is from the mountain. A simple mind cannot describe simplicity. It can no more describe simplicity than a born-blind man can describe darkness or a deaf-mute delineate the effects of silence. No man can see his lower self except by the light of his new morning. The man who declares that his righteousness is as filthy rags is the man who is already clothed in the best robe of his Father’s house; for it is by the perfection of the new garment that he learns the dilapidation of the old. He who can paint a genuine child must himself have far ascended the slope of manhood.

This artist, then, has no prentice hand; his is the touch of a master. Nowhere is the touch so masterly as where the record seems most childish, for that is precisely the aspect in which his Picture is most true to the subject. There is a great difference between a primitive picture and a picture of the primitive. The former will be foolish but not childlike; the latter will be childlike but not foolish. This Portrait of the child Adam is the latter. You

ask if it is historical. I answer, It has been again and again historical; it has been repeated in your history and in mine. This child is not dead; it lives in the experience of every human soul. It can be verified by the testimony of consciousness. Every step of this Garden Story is your story. The child Adam is your looking-glass — the mirror of your yesterday. Come and look into the glass; come and survey the mirror! You will read there your own biography. It will bea record of childhood no doubt, and, if you will, a childish record; but it will not be the less modern, not the less cosmopolitan, on that account. The record of childhood is never an anachronism. Let it be only sufficiently childlike, only sufficiently simple, and it will always be abreast of every age. The Garden scene has never become obsolete. It is not superannuated by the flight of years, not antiquated by the change of customs, not eclipsed by the growth of later things. And the reason is that it is planted in that field of humanity whose products neither grow nor decline — that field of

childhood whose fruits spring up spontaneously and abide for ever the same. Let us describe the portrait of this typical child.

Not as an absolute beginning does the child Adam burst upon our view. We are accustomed to figure him so. We think of him as coming into the world with no experience, as bringing upon the scene a mind absolutely vacant and waiting for nature to give it a character. Not thus does the great artist depict this child. He leads upon the stage of time no vacant soul, no empty life. He brings a child, but not a child without experience. Adam begins the world with capital. He is the first of his race, yet there is in him a long stream of heredity. Nay, there are two long streams of heredity. The child Adam comes into this world with two worlds already in his breast. He enters life with a double bias — a bias from earth and a bias from heaven. Two elements are in him — not necessarily diverse, but different and capable of conflict — the dust of the sround and the breath of the Father. He does not get his character from the Garden; he gives his character Zo the

Garden. He clothes the grounds of Eden in his own attributes — dust and divinity. He looks at the trees and says, ‘They are good for food, and they are pleasant to the eyes.’ There spoke both sides of his heredity — his parentage from the earth and his parentage from the breath of God. The one was the cry of the outer man; the other was a voice of the spirit. The one welcomed the Garden as a means of sustenance; the other hailed it as a source of beauty. The one claimed bread, the means of livelihood, the support of the physical life; the other expressed its conviction that Man could not live by bread alone. ‘Good for food,’ ‘pleasant to the eyes’ — it was the marriage in one mind, in a child’s mind, of the lower and the higher. It was the wedding of the Philistine and the Greek, the union of prose and poetry, the bridal morn of two instincts which few nations have united — the pursuit of utilitarian ends, and the repose in zsthetic pleasures.

Now, why do I say that this is a representative picture? Because in the dawning consciousness of your own infant you will find exactly the same mixture of dust and divinity. There are two objects which almost simultaneously attract that dawning consciousness — the thing which nourishes and the thing which shines. The child cries for food; it is the voice of the body, the call of the outer life — and it breathes a prayer which is common to the animal and the man. But there is another hunger which has a place in the breast of the infant and which in the man is destined to acquire a quite special significance; it is the hunger of the eye. Pass a shining object before the sight of infancy, and the little hand will be outstretched to grasp it. The impulse which dictates that movement cannot be from the dust — not even though it be shared by the eye of many a feathered songster. Place it where you will, it is the germ of the love of beauty, and, as such, it is above the dust. Wherever it is found, it is the breath of the Father. And it is found in the infant. On the very threshold of human existence there is a

gate called Beautiful side by side with a gate unadorned. The unadorned gate and the beautiful gate both open together. The one leads to the plain; the other conducts to the mountain. Seen from each, the Tree of Life looks different. From the gate of the plain I see its fruits; from the gate of the mountain I behold its blossoms. The one gives the view of its uses; the other gives a sight of what merchants cannot buy. Young Adam ever beholds both. But look again at the development of your child, and you will see how cosmopolitan is this biography of the primeval Adam. I have said that the typical child begins with the search for that which nourishes and the search for that which shines. But there comes a phase later than either — the search for that which magnifies. If the child begins with the hunger of the mouth and the hunger of the eye, it passes by and by into a third form of appetite — the hunger of the hand. The love of possession comes. Adam looks at the tree and cries, ‘If I could get up there, I should be as high as God.’ There has come to him a new instinct — the instinct of ownership. He wants to have the sense of being the proprietor of the Garden, the joy of being able to say, ‘It is mine. Any other book than the Bible would have made the primal man crouch in abject terror before the new-found majesty of Nature. But with the Bible the primal man’ is a child — and children are not timid. The characteristic of a child is the wish for mastery, the desire for superiority. All imitation comes from it, and imitation is the earliest step of human development. Why does a child imitate his playfellow? It is because he sees on the Tree of Life a bit of fruit which he himself has not got, an experience which he has not appropriated. It is a grand stroke in the painter of the first man that at any cost he feels bound to make him an imitator. When he has painted him as the occupant of a solitary garden where there is none but himself and God Almighty, he boldly makes him take the Almighty as his model, and expresses the child’s inveterate love of possession by causing him to look at the topmost branch and say, ‘If I reach that, I shall be like God.’

Let us pursue the development. We have seen three phases of the child Adam — phases reproduced from Paradise to Paris, from Eden to England — the sense of want, the sense of beauty, and the sense of possession. As yet there is a phase which we have zo¢ seen — the sense of sin. The reason I take to be that possession must precede transgression. What is transgression? It literally means the stepping over into another’s ground. I cannot do that until I have reached the idea of a boundary — of a disputed boundary. Very finely, to my mind, is this thought sketched by the great artist in Genesis. The child Adam has stretched his hand towards the trees of the Garden and said, ‘They are mine.’ Through the cool air a voice comes, ‘They are not af yours; it is a divided ownership.’ With that voice came the first possibility of actual transgression — of stepping into another’s field. That other was here the Creator; there was no rival chzld to say, ‘This part belongs to me;’ therefore the Almighty said it. The first thing prohibited was trespassing on the Dzvzne field — for the simple reason that there was no rival human field. The earliest moral appeal was an appeal to human justice — that is the grand feature of the Picture. It is an appeal to the child to be just to his Creator. No artistic conception was ever more original. It is not a demand for reverence, a demand for homage, a demand for sacrifice; it is a demand for bare justice. ‘We parted this field between us, you and I; let us keep to our contract! I gave you one side of the Garden; I retained the other. You had the Tree of Life; I had the Tree of Knowledge. Why should you break over the prescribed limits! Is it not enough to have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air and the cattle of the meadow; why should you claim an empire in the realm of the unseen!’

I have emphasised this point because I think it is the one point where the Picture has been misunderstood. The common view is that the artist is describing a case of mere disobedience. I do not think that is the deepest idea of the Picture. I hold that the primitive narration has attached itself, not to the portrayal of obedience, but to the portrayal of justice. It is not a question of resistance to Divine authority; it is a question of interference with Divine possession. God, for the moment, has, in the view of the artist, ceased to be a sovereign; He has become the co-partner in an estate by reason of His own contract. He has divided His inheritance with the child Adam; He has apportioned the limits within which each shall rule. But the child Adam is restive under the contract. He would fain be uncontracted, he would fain be free. He is offended by the “mt to his sway. He objects to a partition wall between the two rows of trees. He is bent on trespassing, on claiming the whole Garden for himself. The law which he seeks to violate is not a law of authority; it is a law of justice, of equity, of the relation of meum and tuum, That is, in my view, the meaning of this old Picture. Milton has told us that the secret of Paradise lost was ‘Man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree.’ I do not think that is the secret which the painter had in his mind. To him the central thought was not the violation of authority, but the violation of justice. It is not the dependant forgetting the respect to his master; it is the partner ignoring his contract, the associate breaking his bond, the sharer of dual rights attempting to encroach upon the rights of the other.

Now, I appeal to you who have studied the life of the nursery, if this is not the real beginning of the moral training of every child. You cannot teach your child morality by teaching it obedience. Obedience is in itself neither good nor bad — may be ezther good or bad; it depends upon whom we obey. Nor is the quality which you desire for your child that of absolute obedience. There is not a mother in the land who does not long for the day when the actions of her child shall cease to be dictated by her own will. The dearest moment to the heart of a parent is the moment of a child’s spontaneity — the day when it anticipates the ordinary command and does the deed of its own accord. What zs the joy of that moment to the parental heart? It is the recognition that the reign of absolute obedience is past and that the reign of volition has begun. It is the perception that the child has ceased to be a subordinate and has become an equal — animated by the same motive, inspired by the same will, I have been greatly struck by the traces of this parental instinct even in the earliest delineation. When I am told that ‘the Lord God brought every beast of the field to Adam to see what he would call them,’ what does that mean? What else than this, that obedience is not enough for the heart of a father! Why does not the artist paint the Divine Father as adzctating to the child the names of the creatures? Because he knows human nature, Divine nature, better than that. He knows that the sweetest music to any parent is the voice of the child’s co-operation, and that the summer of a father’s love is perfected in the hour when the relation of authority is superseded by the sympathy of

communion.

Obedience, then, is not the beginning of a child’s morality. What zs the beginning? I say it is justice, the inculcation of fairplay. Whether in the garden or in the playground, it is the primary moral lesson of youth. The difference between his and yours is the first thing which your child should know. Let him see the limits of his own Eden. Put him in a garden where there is a divided possession. Tell him to make an impartial division of the trees. Insist that he shall share the fruits with his playmate or brother. Impress him with the injustice of trespassing, transgressing, overstepping his own property. Never prohibit for the sake of prohibition. If you want to forbid the use of any tree, let it be for the reason that the tree belongs to another. Prohibition in itself is not helpful to the child any more than the maiming of a wing is helpful to the bird. But justice zs helpful. Justice is worth the maiming of a wing. Justice sanctifies prohibition. To teach your child justice, the shutting of one door upon its liberty is a small price to pay. The forbidden fruit becomes then the fruit of knowledge.

This is my philosophy of the Garden of Eden, and I am convinced it was the philosophy of the artist. The temptation of young Adam is the temptation to his justice; the fall of young Adam is his fall from the hezght of justice. With the theology that has circled round the Picture I have here no concern. I will only say that a fall from the height of justice is the most contagious fall which can be conceived. If the sin of the first man lay in the breach of a contract which he believed to be binding, I can understand why the spirit of his deed should have been propagated from age to age. I cannot understand why an act of disobedience should have been propagated, for the simple reason that it zs an act. Deeds, as such, are not transmittable; my blood alone can flow into the heart of my descendants. The emotions of the hour are not transmittable; they would require to be transmitted for many hours through many generations. But injustice is not a deed, not an emotion; it is a full-fledged spirit. It is as full-fledged after a single deed as after years of unrighteousness. An act of injustice is never the beginning of a process; it is always a culmination, an acme, a climax. An act of disobedience zs a beginning, a first step. But an act of injustice only comes when the spirit of injustice is full grown. It presupposes a long train of dishonest thoughts. The most dangerous looks which Adam cast on the coveted tree were not the looks of the eye; they were the glances of the heart. Our coveted trees are never so tempting as when they are seen in imagination; it is there the fruit looks luscious, it is there the branches seem splendid. The actual climbing of this tree was to young Adama moral bagatelle. He had been up, in fancy, a hundred times. He had robbed the orchard where the law could not reach him — in his heart. The serpent which tempted him was within; he had yielded before he touched the tree. His real fall was dishonesty of

thought. The moment he considered the chances of detection, he had already fallen ill — ill with a thoroughly contagious disease, with a malady full-grown. This child, like every after child, has his tragedy inside, his dramatic personages inside, his dialogues inside. I do not think the tragedy would be less complete if the outward deed had been omitted; for the final act of injustice, in the sight of heaven, is ever consummated in

the region of the soul.

ORD, let me not forget 7%y share in life’s garden! Let me remember to make all

its fruits ‘ fruits of the spirit’! Let me not ask only if the tree is good for food, or pleasant to the eyes, or a source of human dignity; let me inquire also if it can minister to Love! If I forget that, I am not just to Zee; I am stealing Zhy part of the fruit. Thou hast not denied to me the human side of the garden. Thou hast allowed me to seek the food; Thou hast permitted me to see the beauty; Thou hast authorised me to feel the

q dignity. But is there to be no share for Thee — for Love! Am I never to ask how this fruit shall pass from my hand into another hand! Am I never to ponder how I shall send it down the ages! Am I never to inquire whether it can gladden parched lips or cheer the couch of an invalid! If not, I am stealing the fruit from Zee. I say the tree is pleasant to my sight; it is well; Thou wouldst not have it otherwise. But am I never to consider the lane and alley! Am I never to ask whether the green leaf can be brought to weary eyes, to hearts that are strangers to the leisure hour! If not, I am stealing the leaf from Tee, robbing the orchard on the side of Love. Make me just to Zzy vineyard, O Lord! Shall all my prayers be for Eshcol! Shall I have no palms for Elim! Shall I have no tree for the waters of Marah! Shall I have no manna for my brother’s desert! Shall I have no leaves whose mission is the healing of the nations! Then Eden ztse/f to me will be

Paradise lost.