his wife. The woman, he said, whom thou gavest to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat. He sought impiously to cast the blame, not only upon Eve, but upon God Himself, as if it were God's fault that he had sinned, because it was God who gave Eve to be his companion. The Lord then turned to the woman, and said, Why hast thou done this? She also followed her husband's example, and excused herself by saying that the serpent had deceived her; as if it were not her own fault that she had been deceived.

Then followed that awful curse under which all men have suffered, from that day until now. God cursed the serpent, which had been the tool employed by the devil in accomplishing his guilty purposes, condemning it to creep upon the dust of the earth. To the woman He said, that sorrow and servitude should be her portion; that in sorrow she should bear her children, and be ruled by the husband whom she had tempted to sin. To the man He said, that his whole existence should be turned into painful toil, that the earth should be cursed because of his sin, and its fertility so much destroyed, that only by perpetual labour should he keep down the thorns and thistles it would bring forth, and make it yield him the support necessary for life. That death also, which the devil had persuaded him would not follow upon his eating the fruit, was inflicted upon him. In place of being taken without death from the Paradise of bliss on earth to the full presence of God in heaven, after passing many years of toil and sorrow, his body was to return to the dust from which it was taken, and his soul to be given into the hands of Satan and his devils, to be tormented in hell. The whole earth and its inhabitants was also visited with the curse which destroyed Adam and his wife. The brutes of the field and all animals learned to kill and devour one another; the elements became disordered, and storms, earthquakes, and pestilences, came to terrify and destroy both man and beast.

Within the soul of man the effects of this one sin were even more dreadful. Adam and Eve were deprived

of that grace and presence of God which had been their great safeguard, and had enabled them to control the natural desires of their flesh and their minds; their hearts and intellects were also clouded, corrupted, and blinded; so that lust, passion, anger, pride, revenge, envy, selfishness, and every evil thing began to work within them. God Himself was almost hidden from their understandings, and they ceased altogether to love Him; while the little love they retained for one another was easily overcome by the love of self, which now became the chief feeling in their souls.

They were also driven shamefully from the garden in which they lived, because in it, besides the tree of knowledge, God had planted a tree of life; a tree possessing a certain mysterious power of giving immortality to those who ate of its fruits, so that, by the law which God Himself had made, they would never die. The Lord, therefore, clothed Adam and Eve with skins, and sent them forth from Paradise, and placed angels, called cherubims, at its gate, with a flaming sword, that turned and blazed in every direction, so that none should henceforth approach or eat of the life-giving tree.

Yet the justice of God was not so far provoked as to cast off the guilty pair for ever. Though He condemned them at once, without mercy, to all the punishment which He had threatened, and though He thought fit in His incomprehensible wisdom to inflict upon all their children afterwards the same misery which He inflicted upon them, He also found a remedy for those who would embrace it. He promised that after a time a Saviour should appear in the world, who would destroy the power which the devil had now acquired over the whole race of men, and who should restore to them all the blessings they had forfeited. He said to the serpent, I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed; she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. From the children of the woman was to be born, in after-ages, a Conqueror, who would fight with the devil, and overcome him. The enmity between Satan and men should

continue as long as the world itself should last, and man himself should have no power to escape from Satan's dominion; and even when the promised Saviour should appear, He would suffer much from the malice and fury of the devil, who would lie in wait, and as it were bite His heel. But the contest would end in the crushing of Satan's head, and the delivery of mankind from the curse now laid upon them.

And still further, though the original grace with which God had clothed the souls of Adam and Eve was stripped away, He did not quite desert them, or leave them to perish without hope. He afforded them such help, that if they would only bring themselves to seek it rightly, and would turn away from sin, and resist the power of the devil, they might still enjoy His favour, and by virtue of that victory over Satan and death, which the promised seed of the woman was to win, be finally admitted to His presence in heaven.

CHAP. V. Cain and Abel.

ON the day when Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise, which is now nearly 6000 years ago, began that life of man which, with certain outward differences, was precisely the same as we now live. The chief point of difference consisted in the length of life which God gave to Adam and his posterity for several hundreds of years. Adam himself lived more than 900 years; and Mathusala, who came in the seventh generation after him, lived nearly 1000. But by degrees the lives of men were shortened, till they came to be what they are now. The kind of life which Adam and Eve lived after they were sent forth from Paradise, it is not easy to know. It was, doubtless, a simple pastoral life, in which agriculture was their occupation, and they were also without any of those arts or sciences which in the present day make our existence so different from that of savage nations. In its simplicity, it was not unlike that of the uncivilised races which still remain in various

parts of the world. But although fallen and sinners, we cannot doubt that Adam and Eve were penitent, and served God in all sincerity, while they possessed a knowledge of God such as is never found in these times among savage races. Probably it was far happier than that of most persons until the promised Saviour came, though we can scarcely doubt that Adam and Eve must have borne to their graves the bitter remembrance that it was through them that the whole race of their posterity was cursed; and they must have mourned with deeper sorrow than their children would feel. It is likely, also, that the bodily strength and beauty which they had possessed in Paradise only left them and their descendants by degrees; and that the diseases to which we are subject were introduced slowly among men, chiefly through their own continued sins and intemperance.

The most awful proof which they experienced of the power which the devil had gained over them, was in the conduct of their first-born child. He was called Cain, and their second son was named Abel. Cain occupied himself in cultivating the ground; Abel was a shepherd, and tended flocks. It was on an occasion when they both offered special religious service to God, that the diabolical nature of sin thus appeared. Adam had been taught by God to make offerings to Him of whatever he possessed, as a token of the obedience with which he must offer up his own will and desires in order to obtain the favour of God, and as a figure of the sacrifice to be offered by the coming Saviour. On a certain day accordingly, Cain and Abel were performing this duty, Cain offering the fruits of the earth, and Abel the best of the flocks which he possessed. The Almighty, however, rejected the offering of Cain, because he did not. offer it with a sincere heart. He did not sacrifice himself to God, but expected to satisfy Him by giving Him his riches, while he kept his heart and his will for himself. While Abel's offering, therefore, was accepted, God gave some sign that He refused what Cain gave; perhaps a voice came down from heaven, or a fire con

sumed the sacrifice of Abel, while that of Cain was left untouched and dishonoured.

Then rose up the devil's passions in Cain. He could not endure to see his own brother favoured, while he was neglected and rebuked. Yet God bore with him, and remonstrated with him, and shewed that he was only treated with justice, and bade him repent, and do better for the future. But Satan was master in the heart of Cain. He asked his brother to walk with him into the field, and then struck him to the ground, and slew him. The voice of God then spoke terribly to his soul, and asked, Where is thy brother Abel? And Cain pretended that he could not tell, and said that he was not his brother's keeper. And God said to him, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to Me from the earth. Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the earth, which hath opened her mouth, and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand. When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth. Then Cain's soul was overwhelmed with remorse and horror at the deed he had done. He shuddered beneath the words of God, and cried out in his despair that he would be struck dead by the first person he met with on the earth. Whether there were already other children born to Adam and Eve, so that Cain feared vengeance for Abel's death from his other brothers, or whether he feared those yet unborn, cannot be said. It is supposed, however, that about 130 years had already passed since the fall, so that Cain might already have had brothers and nephews, whose wrath he feared would fall upon him. But God set a mark upon Cain, perhaps some trembling, or terrible appearance, which should at once serve to shew the greatness of his crime, and point him out as one whose punishment the Almighty had reserved to Himself. He seems to have lived the life of an outlaw to the end of his days.

Of the other children, both sons and daughters, who were born to Adam and Eve, the Bible says but little. A son of Cain is related to have "built a city;" mean