in distresses and troubles.”  And Adam said to Eve:  “Arise, and go with our son Seth near Paradise, and put earth upon your heads, and weep, beseeching the Lord that he may have compassion upon me, and send his angel to Paradise, and give me of the tree out of which flows the oil, that thou mayest bring it unto me; and I shall anoint myself and have rest, and show thee the manner in which we were deceived at first."...  And Seth went with his mother Eve near Paradise, and they wept there, beseeching God to send his angel to give them the Oil of Compassion.  And God sent to them the archangel Michael, who said to them these words:  “Seth, man of God, do not weary thyself praying in this supplication about the tree from which flows the oil to anoint thy father Adam; for it will not happen to thee now, but at the last times....  Do thou again go to thy father, since the measure of his life is fulfilled, saving three days.”

The Revelation, or Apocalypse, of Moses, remarks Mr. Alex.  Walker (from whose translation the foregoing is extracted:  Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Revelations, 1870), “belongs rather to the Old Testament than to the New.  We have been unable to find in it any reference to any Christian writing.  In its form, too, it appears to be a portion of some larger work.  Parts of it at least are of an ancient date, as it is very likely from this source that the celebrated legend of the Tree of Life and the Oil of Mercy was derived”—­an account of which, from the German of Dr. Piper, is given in the Journal of Sacred Literature, October, 1864, vol. vi (N.S.), p. 30 ff.

MUSLIM LEGEND OF ADAM’S PUNISHMENT, PARDON, DEATH, AND BURIAL.

When “our first parents” were expelled from Paradise, Adam fell upon the mountain in Ceylon which still retains his name ("Adam’s Peak"), while Eve descended at Juddah, which is the port of Mecca, in Arabia.  Seated on the pinnacle of the highest mountain in Ceylon, with the orisons of the angelic choirs still vibrating in his ears, the fallen progenitor of the human race had sufficient leisure to bewail his guilt, forbearing all food and sustenance for the space of forty days.[112] But Allah, whose mercy ever surpasses his indignation, and who sought not the death of the wretched penitent, then despatched to his relief the angel Gabriel, who presented him with a quantity of wheat, taken from that fatal tree[113] for which he had defied the wrath of his Creator, with the information that it was to be for food to him and to his children.  At the same time he was directed to set it in the earth, and afterwards to grind it into flour.  Adam obeyed, for it was part of his penalty that he should toil for sustenance; and the same day the corn sprang up and arrived at maturity, thus affording him an immediate resource against the evils of hunger and famine.  For the benevolent archangel did not quit him until he had farther taught him how to construct a mill on the side of the mountain, to grind his corn, and also how to convert the flour into dough and bake it into bread.