and surveyed their happy abode, and heaven above, with eyes sparkling with gratitude and love. Now they droop their guilty heads, and their eyes, suffused with tears, bend downward to that earth from which their bodies were taken, and to which they are doomed to return.

But, above all, their

"Robe of Innocence was gone."

Once they were naked but not ashamed, now, stripped of their original adorning, they are destitute of any robe, or garment, or covering, in which they could appear acceptably in the presence of their Creator King. They were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." And being found in this sad state, they were no longer fit residents of "the garden."

66

"Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

"High in front advanced,

The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed,

Fierce as a comet; whereat

In either hand the hastening angel caught

Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd, and fiery arms.

Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."*

* Milton.

CHAPTER II.

"With flowing eyes and bleeding heart,
A ruin'd world survey!

See the wide mischief sin hath wrought
In one unhappy day!

Adam, in God's own image form'd

From God and bliss estrang'd!

And all the joys of Paradise,

For guilt and horror chang'd."

THE SAD CONSEQUENCES OF THE LOSS OF THE
BEAUTIFUL GARMENT.

*

BUT what was this Beautiful Garment, which our first parents put off? Before we proceed any further, we should understand this. I set myself to find this out, and I had not searched long in the one only Book in all the world that is quite true, and which cannot be wrong, because it is truth itself, before I found that it consisted of "Righteousnes and True Holiness."+ And as I thought of this description, I found that it harmonized entirely with what is known to be the sum and substance of all real religion-the love of God, and the love of man. Righteousnes requiring us to do right to man, and Holiness requiring us to obey God. Adam did both himself

"Thy Word is Truth." John xvii. 17. † Eph. iv. 24.

and his posterity a great wrong, and he rebelled against the holiness of God; and it was thus that he put off his Robe of Innocence, the web and the warp of which were Righteousness and true Holiness." With this understanding of what the beautiful garment consisted we may now go on.

Soon, very soon, were the sad effects of this loss to be seen; and they were seen, too, in the first family that was ever gathered around a father and a mother! When the first child was born, his mother called him Cain, which means "Acquisition," saying, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." No donbt she thought of the promise that her seed should bruise the head of the serpent which had deceived her, and she rejoiced that the birth of this man-child was, so far, an earnest that the promise would be fulfilled. But, alas! time passed on, and this child grew up to be an unrighteous and unholy man-a murderer, and the murderer of his own and only brother!

"O the wrath of the Lord is a terrible thing!

Like the tempest that withers the blossoms of spring,
Like the thunder that bursts on the summer's domain,
It fell on the head of the homicide, Cain.

And lo! like a deer in the fright of the chase,
With a fire in his heart, and a brand on his face,

He speeds him afar to the desert of Nod—
A vagabond smote by the vengeance of God.

All nature to him has been blasted and bann'd,

For the blood of a brother yet reeks on his hand;
And no vintage has grown, and no fountain has sprung,
For cheering his heart, or for cooling his tongue.

The groans of a father his slumber shall start,
And the tears of a mother shall pierce to his heart,
And the kiss of his children shall scorch him like flame,
When he thinks of the curse that hangs over his name.

And the wife of his bosom-the faithful and fair-
Can mix no sweet drop in his cup of despair;
For her tender caress, and her innocent breath,
But stir in his soul the hot embers of wrath!

And his offering may blaze, unregarded by Heaven;
Aud his spirit may pray, yet remain unforgiven ;
And his grave may be closed, but no rest to him bring:
O the wrath of the Lord is a terrible thing!"*

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply," that "the earth was filled with violence." "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord

* Knox.