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

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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.Ӡ And as I thought of this description, I found that it har-. monized 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 66. 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;
And 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.

that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

I had not read far in my infallible historical guide, before I found these awful facts recorded, and searching further, I found that mankind had acted with all this outrageous violence, notwithstanding the Great King had admonished and warned them. 66 'Enoch, the seventh from Adam," reproved these ungodly sinners for all their ungodly deeds which they ungodly committed; and Noah, "a preacher of righteousness," foretold the flood which God would bring upon the world of the ungodly; but they heeded them not. At length, the Most High thought right to stop their violent and ungodly proceedings. "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both, man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." And this, after one hundred and twenty years' space for repentance, was done; for repenting not, the flood came and swept those giants of wickedness all away. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord," and he and his family were saved in the ark, which floated safely over that shoreless sea, strewed with the wrecks of an ungodly world.

The deluge, at the Almighty's call
In what impetuous streams it fell!
Swallow'd the mountains in its rage,
And swept a guilty world to hell.

How dire the wreck! how loud the roar!
How shrill the universal cry
Of millions, in their last despair,
Re-echo'd from the low'ring sky.

Yet Noah, humble, happy saint,

Surrounded with the chosen few,

Sat in his ark, secure from fear,

And sang the grace that steered him through.

So may I sing, in Jesus safe,

While fiery storms around me fall;
Conscious how high my hopes are fix'd,
Beyond what shakes this earthly ball.

Men multiplied again in the earth, and again they proved themselves to be destitute of righteousness and true holiness. Soon we find them engaged in an impious attempt to build a city and a tower whose top should reach unto heaven; but God came down and confounded their language, and scattered them abroad on the face of all the earth, Then we read of their being engaged in mortal conflict with each other, dealing deathblows on their fellows on every hand. And then we read of the inhabitants of two cities, whose

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