Why might such things be? Were they reconcileable with those attributes of justice and of love and longsuffering, which the Eternal had already proclaimed, through His conduct, to His creatures? They were: for in the death of the innocent IMMORTALITY was proclaimed!

The disobedient looked on the death their sin had brought they felt, in their own bosoms, the deepest agony of bereavement-they saw not the terror, only as the end of existence; but by the scythe cutting down the young in his first beautiful spring, and in the full prime of holiness and good, they learned what their own death, at the moment of disobedience, could not have taught— that the righteous must also be cut off, as well as the guilty that death was not only chastisement for itself alone, but in the deep agony it inflicted upon the living, in the awful trial of separation and bereavement, and the utter loneliness of heart when a beloved one goes; and this learned, the world beyond death, the dwelling of the righteous, the reunion of the divine essence with its parent Fount-immortality—was revealed!

That the caviller, the sceptic, the thoughtless will deny this, because we can bring forward no written proof of its truth, we are perfectly aware: but we write for the believer, for the Israelite, who not only reads the words of his Bible, but explains them by one only unerring test-the ATTRIBUTES of God. The question is simply this-Do we believe in a God? He proclaimed Himself, "merciful and suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and sin, yet clearing not the guilty," without repentance and amend

That He is, as

gracious, long

ment? Do we believe in him, as in every page of His Holy Word He is revealed, or do we not? If we do not-if we deny the existence of a just and merciful, though in many instances inscrutable, God, then indeed we may deny our immortality; but if we acknowledge there is a God, ay, and one whose justice and whose love are infinite and perfect as Himself, we must not only believe in our own immortality, but trace its doctrine running through the Holy Scriptures, alike from the death of Abel to the last verses of Malachi, pervading, vivifying, spirit ualising its every portion, even as our mortal frame is pervaded, vivified, and spiritualised, by the invisible, yet ever-breathing SOUL. We do not doubt and question that we have a soul, because we have nothing palpable and evident by which to prove it; and even as the soul is the essence, the spirit of our being, so is immortality the essence and the spirit of the Bible.

Where was the mercy, nay, the justice of the Eternal, had he punished with eternal death the only righteous of His creatures? We can scarcely even dwell upon the idea for a moment without impiety. Abel was taken, that while death in his most fearful form was revealed, to manifest all the terrible evil and anguish Eve's sin had brought, the hope and promise of immortality might be given, and the agonised parents comforted, He was removed from the evil to come," to that world, where "light had been sown for the righteous" from the beginning, and would be for ever.

But though this revelation must have brought with it comfort unspeakable, yet the heavy trial of Eve might not even, through this beneficent assurance, be entirely assuaged. She could not now, as she had done in

Eden, realise so blessedly the pre-eminence of the spirit over the feelings of the clay. Though comforted, the weakness of humanity must still have been too often in the ascendant, and taught her all the bitterness of grief. Even though the thought of Abel might, through the unselfishness of woman's love, be tranquilised by the idea, that however she might suffer, he was happy, as she had been in Eden, no such comfort could attend the thought of Cain. It is vain to measure maternal love by the worth or unworthiness of its objects. It was not only that he was exiled for ever from her sight, that her yearning heart might never seek to soothe him more; but she knew that he was, he must be, a wretched wanderer; and the mother felt his wretchedness, though she saw it not, in addition to her own. Mercy, indeed, had tempered his chastisement, for he had not been cut off in his sin—he had been doomed to length of days on earth, that he might repent and atone; but this, to a weak and suffering parent, though she might struggle to lift up her heart in gratitude, could not afford consolation.

There is little more to narrate in the life of Eve; but that little, as every other incident in her life, proves forcibly the Eternal's still compassionating love. To remove all of utter bereavement from His first created, first beloved, when the first agony of Eve's heavy trial was over, God gave her another son. "And she called his name Seth, because she said, God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." And as from Seth descended a line of venerable patriarchs, one of whom was taken up to heaven, without dying, for his righteousness; and from them came Noah, who alone was saved from universal destruction; then

through him Abraham, the favoured servant and friend of the Eternal-Abraham, for whose sake Israel was the chosen, and is still the beloved of the Lord, we may quite believe that Eve was not only comforted by the gift of a son, but that even as Abel he was righteous, and that he was the comforter of his parents-that in beholding his opening manhood, the dawning virtue and graces of his spirit, the fiery trial of their early life was soothed, and they could trace the hand of the Lord bringing forth good out of the very midst of evil, and rest satisfied, that however the strong and the guilty might seem to prosper, He would never leave Himself without witnesses upon earth.

Although there is no mention of the death of Eve, the words of Holy Writ, informing us that "Adam lived eight hundred years after he had begotten Seth, and had sons and daughters," would prove that she, too, lived that period, there being no mention whatever, as is often the case with the other patriarchs, of Adam taking another wife. The former temptations, trials, and sorrows of our first parents, must, then, have been looked back upon by them in their old age, as we should look on the events which may have befallen us before the age of twenty, when we have reached the venerable years of fourscore. That long life was evidently granted in mercy. Had they been cut off on the instant of their transgression, it must have been for eternity, or death would have been no punishment. Had they been taken sooner, we will suppose before the death of Abel, though they might have been spared that bitter sorrow, still darkness, and fear for themselves, and doubt as to the ways and attributes of the Eternal, must have crowded round them, and filled them with despair as to

the probable effects of their sin on their offspring, and their offspring's seed. Long life, through the infinite mercy of the Eternal, removed these evils. While they felt, in all the bitterness of remorse, all the evil they had wrought, they were yet comforted by the revelation of immortality and the consequent incentive for the struggling after righteousness, which without such blessed incentive, man could never have achieved. They beheld, that though the likeness of God within them had been dulled in all, and in some would be almost entirely effaced, it might in heaven be regained, if while on earth it was sought with faith and works. They learned, that though discord and strife and oppression and labour and care, would reign tumultuously on earth, to the extinction, in appearance, of all that was spiritual and good, there was yet in heaven an omnipresent and everacting love, which would so over-rule the world, that even from "transitory evil" would spring forth "universal good," and every seemingly dark and contradictory event below, tend to the glory, the extension, and the perfection of the divine economy above.

To obtain this knowledge, our first parents were spared, and not cut off in their sin; and can we, their offspring, even at this length of time, peruse their eventful history, without feeling our hearts glow with grateful adoration of the love which guided and hallowed them throughout? The stream of time which divides us is indeed so wide, that we are apt to feel, that events so far distant can concern us little. Yet while we trace in our mortal frame, and painful infirmities, the effects of their disobedience, shall we not acknowledge, with grateful and adoring faith, that the same love which guided, blessed, and pardoned them, is still extended unto us?