There was, however, another race, of which we have a special account, a first-fruit of humanity, one consecrated especially to the Parents who gave him being, the Adam, who, instead of being left to take his lot with the rest of his kind on the wide earth, was placed in a privileged position, had a mansion, roofless to the sky, prepared for him, a glorious garden called Paradise! Nor was this being to be left in self-satisfied solitude, for, proceeding from him, the Divine Creators fashioned for him the most beautiful being imaginable-the Eve, the destined mother of all living First-fruits of Paradise-as a perpetual partner. In a guarded garden, in constant communication with their Most High and Almighty Parents, the first-fruits of the stock of mankind were to be an example of obedience and fealty, and the dispensers of benign benefits to the rest of the race of Adam-as the race was calledoutside Paradise. The Paradise pair were, as the patterns of humanity, forewarned of the existence of evil, and a certain tree was to be a sacramental sign to them of this existence; and further acquaintance with it would be their ruin, and they were firmly forbidden to taste of that tree. The heads of humanity broke that considerate command of their loving, heavenly Parents. Satanic subtilty seduced the precious partner of the Adam, and he partook of the fruit with her, and thus husband and wife, banished from the precincts of Paradise, carried to the surrounding earth and its inhabitants disease, and death, instead of the consolation of health and life!

Let me now proceed to prove from the pages of

Holy Writ that there were two races of mankind created—a pair outside Paradise, and a pair inside.

The creation of the first pair is related in these words:

"And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. And God created man (i.e., mankind) in His own image, in the image of God created They him; male and female created They them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day." (Gen. i. 26-31.)

This is a sublime and unique account of the creation by God of that race of mankind who were to subdue the earth, outside the precincts of Paradise. I would especially direct attention to the marvellous councilling of the Creative Parents, and to Their determination to make both male and female in Their image after Their likeness. What condescension on the Creator's part! How grateful ought mankind to have been to the All-good Parents!

Next notice that our ancestors are sent forth into the earth with the divine blessing.

Then follow these simple commands: To propagate their race under God's blessing and without sorrow; to subdue the earth by the dignity of labour, experiencing the delight of extracting unending treasures from her bosom; the keeping of the lower creation under their control, and with kindness making them minister to their wants; finally the command as to their diet-which comprised the whole of the vegetable world!

Such was the destiny to which the most prolific race of mankind was called, and which, so long as it continued under God's blessing, it must have enjoyed. "Now, this account was written for our admonition, upon whom the end of the dispensation has come." Surprising, indeed, it is how little attention even students of Holy Writ pay to it. They will mix it up, in some unaccountable way, with the separate race of mankind recorded in the second chapter. Why, it is not so very long since that there was a long correspondence in the Times about the divine necessity of labour, but not one of the numerous correspondents quoted the divine command as recorded in this first chapter of Genesis. Not a bit of it; they must needs quote the curse upon the convict of Paradise as an indication of the divine dignity of labour.

It is this slipshod study of Holy Writ, even by professing Christians, which causes so many men and women, particularly amongst our toilers, to give up belief in the Bible and in a Christian life altogether. We shall next, perhaps, hear the

"sweaters" of our towns and cities glibly quoting "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread" as an excuse for their oppression of their slaves! However, to return to what, brief as it was, may well be termed the golden age of mankind. The generous earth yielded its store without stint, and with a minimum of labour. Male and female looked onward without anxiety to the inheritance in store for their children; and beasts, birds, and reptiles found their food, not in preying upon each other, but in the herb of the field; and upon this sinless scene the divine benison, "very good," was pronounced.

THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBle.

Before going further, it may be as well to treat, in the light of revelation and science, of "things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth." Genesis speaks of "all the host of them," and when the eye through the telescope views the myriads of suns and spheres, and knows that there must be myriads more beyond the finite ken, all peopled by intelligent beings, it is no wonder that the mind is lost in amazement at the insignificance of man and womankind, and at the power and forbearance of the Almighty. Time is seen to be but of finite creation when we attempt to proportion eternity, and the contemplation of divine patience transcends our human faculties when we try to grasp the scientific statement of Sir Charles Lyell, that it must have taken two hundred millions of years to effect the changes upon this earth ere it became the habitation of man. I now propose to cull extracts from the last book of Holy Writ, which may throw

light upon the mysteries of the first. The following is a vision of Paradise Regained, as recorded in the Apocalypse :

"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God (the Father-Mother) the Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb. And the nations shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it. And the gates thereof shall in no wise be shut by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but only they which are written in the Lamb's book of life. And he shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof, and on this side of the river, and on that, was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein; and His servants shall do Him service: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever." (Rev. xxi. 22-27, and chap. xxii. 1-6.)

It is important to note (a) what I call the parental names of the Almighty, the Lord God (FatherMother); (b) the existence of numerous nations outside the Holy City; (c) the presence of the tree of life and its healing properties; (d) the extinction