how a man can be led by a woman, a husband by a wife and therefore, how careful women and wives ought to be to use their power rightly.

Had Eve for one moment realised the awful results of this one act of disobedience, she would, we feel sure, have turned a deaf ear to the wiles of the Serpent, and refused to listen to Satan's temptations. But now, 'the eyes of them both were opened,' and the first wisdom and knowledge which dawned upon them was this, 'they knew that they were naked.' Sorrow and sadness must always follow sin, and to our first parents they came but too quickly. How soon were they both changed in nature and in feelings!

The first mournful change in them was, that when hearing the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, shame and terror filled their hearts, and they hid themselves among the trees of the garden. But 'whither shall I go then from Thy presence?' must have been their exclamation in that hour of fear and dread, when they heard the voice of God solemnly asking, 'Adam, where art thou?'

Sin, and sin only, made him tremble at that voice, which once he had loved to hear, and led him to make that cowardly, untruthful answer to his Maker, 'I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked: and I hid myself.'

In this meeting with his God, we see that he

had now lost the Divine image, in which he had been created. God replies, 'Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?' Mark the ingratitude, and the cowardice of Adam in his answer to this question: 'The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.' Thus he endeavours to cast all the blame of his fall upon his Maker, and upon the wife whom God had created to be a help-meet for him. 'Then the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?' And Eve, perhaps with more justice, but with the same mean desire to shift the blame of her own sin on others, said, it was the Serpent's fault, The Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.'

Then was heard in Eden that 'terrible voice of the most just judgment' of God, in the punishment which He pronounced upon the three offenders against Him. The Almighty begins with His curse upon the Serpent, the source of all their sin and misery. It is to be evermore the lowest of all the beasts of the field, ever crawling in the dust, despised and loathed by mankind.

But upon Satan himself, who had taken the form of the serpent, to ruin man, was the great curse passed, 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his

heel.' This promise received its fulfilment mainly in our Lord Jesus Christ, the chiefest of the 'seed,' or descendants, of the woman. His heel, a part not vital, was bruised by Satan, when His body, His merely human nature, was crucified upon the cross. But He bruised Satan's head, in the first instance, when He rose victoriously from the grave, and 'destroyed him, that had the power of death, even the Devil, and delivered them who through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.' And He will bruise it, completely and for ever, when He comes at the Last Day.

But it has also a fulfilment in the dislike, contempt, and opposition, with which those who live only for this world, treat all earnest followers of Jesus Christ; in the persecution with which those 'born after the flesh,' will to the end of time 'persecute them born after the Spirit.' But, thanks be to God, 'greater is He that is for us, than he which is against us.' Christ giveth us the victory over sin and Satan.

Now to the woman He said, 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' Sorrow follows, for both our guilty parents, one was to rule, the other to serve, throughout all future ages. 'Man that is born of a woman is full of trouble.** Affliction, suffering, death, was now

* Job, xiv. 1.

to be the portion of both. To the woman alone a greater trial was allotted in that she was 'first in the transgression.'

Then to Adam, God spake lastly, 'Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'

The first rebuke, you will observe, was in having listened to Eve's temptations, to which Adam ought to have turned a deaf ear. Then followed the curse upon the ground. It is true that active work is a blessing to us all, in whatever grade of life God has been pleased to place us-it was part of the employment of Paradise-and to all, and more especially those who do their work for Him, the curse becomes a blessing. At the same time, what we now call labour is a part of the curse here pronounced, for it brings with it fatigue, weariness, exhaustion to the body.

How new must have been these feelings to Adam and Eve! Together they must ever henceforth tread a rough and thorny path. The thorns, thistles, and weeds growing everywhere, and which required Adam's constant digging and care to pre

vent their overrunning the soil altogether, being a type of the temptations, sorrows, and cares, which beset their daily life.

We are next told, that 'the Lord God did make them coats of skins, and clothed them.' How great His goodness, loving-kindness, and condescension! It is believed, dear friends, that these coats were made of the skins of animals killed to be sacrificed unto God. Because at this time men lived on the herbs of the field, and did not kill animals for food. Even as early as this, God would teach mankind the great truth that 'without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.' Hence blood must be poured out, as a type of the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanseth from all sin. Sacrifices must be offered as a pattern of that great sacrifice, which was in after ages to be offered up for all sinners, in Jesus the 'Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world.'

'The Lord God sent Adam forth from the Garden of Eden.' In these few simple words, how much misery is expressed! What a mournful day must that have been to them, when trembling, shrinking, weeping, they were driven out of Paradise for ever, and saw the Cherubim with a flaming sword, which turned every way, placed at the gate, as it were, to bar the entrance, and prevent their ever again seeing the spot where they had so terribly fallen from grace. And some persons