Chapter IV

1. ABOUT this time man began to use his lip and tongue in enunciating words, prior to which he spoke in the thorax.

2. And the Lord spake unto the I'hin, saying: That the labor of the Lord thy God may be remembered on the earth, go provide me a stone and I will engrave it with mine own hand, and it shall be called Se'moin because it shall be a testimony unto all nations and peoples, on the earth, of the first written language in all the world.

3. And the I'hins prepared a stone, and hewed it flat and then polished it smooth; and the Lord came down in the night and engraved it. And the Lord explained it; through his angels taught he the I'hins the meaning of the characters engraved thereon.

4. And the Lord said: Go into all cities in all the countries of the world, and provide ye copies like unto the tablet I have given. So it came to pass, the angels of heaven inspired the I'hins to make tablets and to read them, that the first language of the earth (Panic) might be preserved to the races of men. And it was so.

5. Now the I'huans partly obeyed the Lord and partly obeyed the way of the flesh; and they became warriors and destroyers; nevertheless they harmed not the I'hins, nor suffered harm to come upon them.

6. God had commanded the I'hins to make eunuchs of the Yaks, the monstrosities, and use them as servants; for the Lord saw that the Yaks were not capable of everlasting life in heaven.

7. Now the I'huans also served the Yaks in the same way; but they disobeyed God in inflicting the neutral gender on their enemies whom they captured in war. And although they were themselves half-breeds with the Druks, yet they hated the Druks, and pursued them with vengeance.

8. In those days the relative proportion of the races of men were: I'hins, one hundred; I'huans, three hundred; Druks, five thousand; Yaks, five thousand; and of monstrosities betwixt man and beast, three thousand; but the latter died each generation, for they had not the power of procreation amongst themselves.

9. And God saw the work of destruction going on (of the I'huans slaughtering right and left), and he sent the I'hins to preach amongst them, saying to the I'hins.

10. Thus say ye to the I'huans: Whomsoever is created alive, kill not, for it is the commandment of the Lord.

11. For in the time of your most p. 47 success in slaughtering your fellow-man, ye are also peopling heaven with the spirits of vengeance. And they will return upon you, and even the I'huans shall turn upon one another; thus saith God.

12. But the I'huans understood not; believed not. And it came to pass that great darkness covered the earth. And man, save the few I'hins, gave up to wickedness all his days.

13. And the Lord's people worshipped and preached in the temples, and the Lord and his heavenly hosts manifested unto them; but all the other races of men heard not, would not come to learn of God.

14. And the Lord became tired in his labor, and He called his angels to him, and he said unto them: Behold, man on the earth hath gone so far from my ways he will not heed my commandments; he cannot hear my voice.

15. And your labor is in vain also. For which reason we will tarry no longer on the earth till man hath exhausted the evil that is in him.

16. So the Lord and his angel hosts departed away from the earth. And clouds came over the face of the earth; the moon shone not, and the sun was only as a red coal of fire; and the stars stood in the firmament as well in the day as at night.

17. The harvests failed; the trees yielded no nuts, and the roots on which man feedeth ceased to grow.

18. And the monstrosities, and the Yaks, and the Druks, died off, tens of millions of them. And even yet they were not extinct. Nevertheless, the I'huans suffered less; and the I'hins not at all. For the Lord had previously inspired them to provide against the coming famine.

19. And the Lord bewailed the earth and the generations of man: I made man upright and walked by his side, but he slipped aside and fell, said the Lord. I admonished him, but he would not heed. I showed him that every living creature brought forth its own kind; but he understood not, believed not; and he dwelt with beasts; falling lower than all the rest.