12 Conversation of Cain and Mehala. wicked man, he hated his brother? Ridiculous! shall it be concluded that I was vicious, that I hated my brother because I did not continually pursue him with tears and embraces? Never, no never, did I hate my brother; but that softness, that effeminacy, with which he stole from me all your hearts, this it was that filled me with disgust! And, Mehala! it is not without cause that care clouds my brow. How great was our father's imprudence in relating to us the history of his shameful fall, and all its unhappy consequences! Why should we know, and be so often told, that through his and Eve's disobedience we have forfeited Paradise; that through their crime we are overwhelmed with misery? Were we ignorant of this, we should more patiently endure our wretchedness, unconscious of the loss we have sustained." Mehala repressed the tears with which grief filled her eyes, and looked at her husband to discover whether she might venture to reply. "O my beloved!" said she, with gentle accents, " be not angry; I cannot restrain my tears. Forgive me if I implore thee not to suffer the scattered clouds JHT Conversation of Cain and Mehala. of melancholy again to gather over thy head; and not to convert those things which should lead thee to contemplate the infinite grace and mercy of the Almighty into sources of misery and wretchedness! Reproach not our affectionate father and our indulgent mother for relating the wonders which God has performed for fallen men, in order to inspire our souls with the warmest gratitude, and with deyout resignation. O, reproach them not!-them, who behold with inexpressible anguish every tear of sorrow, who are deeply afflicted by every gesture in us that bespeaks pain or grief. Resist, my beloved, O resist returning discontent; suffer it not again to take posssession of thy heart, and to obscure thy days and ours with melancholy gloom!" She was silent, and with tearful eyes gazed tenderly on him: a smile tempered the sternness of his counte nance. “I will resist returning discontent; embrace me my beloved; never more shall obscure your days and mine with melancholy gloom!" He said, and pressed Mehala in his embrace*. *We have here a charming picture of the irresistible in Anamelech. Long had Anamelech (by that name he was known in hell) observed the conduct of Cain: though a spirit of an inferior class, yet in pride and ambition he was equal to Satan. Often forsaking his despised associates he withdrew into solitudes, where streams of sulphur crept through the parched land, between vast smoking rocks, whose black summits were shrouded in eternal tempests. The tremendous reflection which the flames that blazed beyond the mountains threw upon the clouds shed a dusky twilight over his gloomy path. When hell with tumultuous shouts of triumph congratulated her king, when, returning from the new creation, he proudly related from his throne how he had seduced the new-formed pair, and had obliged the Lord of heaven to pronounce upon them the decree of death; the black poison of envy rankled in the bosom of Anamelech. Shall only he, and those who are fluence of a virtuous and accomplished woman over the most savage disposition. Cain had heard unmoved the pathetic narrative of Adam; he had beheld unmoved the transports of the happy family on his reconciliation with his brother; but his soul was not proof against the tears and tender remonstrances of Mehala. T. Anamelech, proudly seated around his throne, enjoy honor and applause, while I unnoticed, and con founded among the contemptible, multitude, am consigned to the obscurity of hell? NoI will do such deeds as shall fill hell with astonishment; Satan, like the lowest spirit, shall pronounce my name with reverence!. Thus he thought, and in solitude meditated projects for desolating the earth, for spreading misery and wretchedness among the human race. These he executed with such success that even hell itself heard his name with horror. It was he who, in a later age, excited a ruthless king to destroy the innocent infants of Bethlehem ; smiling he beheld the human fiends,, who dashed those hapless victims against the walls dripping with their blood, or plunged the reeking swords into their bosoms, while in the trembling arms of their shrieking mothers. He hovered, exulting, over the lofty pinnacles of the town, listening to the cries of the dying. infants, and the lamentations of their discon-. solate mothers; with infernal joy he saw the mutilated limbs of the little mangled victims' scattered around, and trampled under the feet Anamelech's visit to Earth. of their murderers; and beheld their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, rolling in the bitterness of anguish, in their innocent blood. 1/1104 1 "I will arise," he exclaimed, "I will ascend to the earth. I will learn the import of the sentence, Thou shalt die.-I will go and accelerate the destruction of man." Then passing through the portals of hell, he pursued the path which Satan had first traced through the awful empire of Chaos and ancient Night*. As when a corsair, equipped for depredation, steers with full sail through the wide extended sea, till, arriving at night on Hesperia's coasts, the pirates surprise the tranquil inhabitants of some peaceful village, and carry off its active youths, while parents, sisters, and disconsolate brides, with weeping eyes, pursue from the shore the lessening bark of the merciless ravishers-thus did Anamelech with rapid pace long continue his course *In allusion to Satan's Journey to the earth, so admirably described in the second book of Milton's Paradise Lost. Ꭲ, |