his assault upon our first parents, and succeeded, through this device, in seducing them from their allegiance to God. We read that the serpent approached first the woman. She was

then, as she is now, not the weakest in intellect, but the most susceptible of impression, and in her innocence perhaps the least suspicious of evil; and most likely, therefore, by a bold and yet subtle assault, to be carried away. If he had approached Adam, there would have been needed much stronger reasoning, less appeal to the tenderness and supposed mercy of God, which so skilfully characterizes the subtle logic that he employed on this occasion. Yea, hath God said?" Are you sure of this, now? Are you sure that, if he did say, "Ye shall surely die," you are putting the right meaning upon it? Now, how subtle was this! how fitted to throw Eve off her guard, and while off her guard to become his victim! The woman, instead of saying to the serpent what she did, ought to have said what the bruiser of his head did afterwards, "Get thee behind me, Satan. It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." But she did not yield to the first, in morals the ever purest, impression. When you are going to take a step in politics or in science, think twice, thrice, four times, before you take it; but in moral things the first blush of the subject is generally the true one. Eve, instead of instantly resisting Satan, when he would have fled from her, held communion with him. "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden." What business had she telling him so? He had no right to have such information, and she had no commission to give it. "But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said" (that was good), "Ye shall not eat of it" (that was good), “neither shall ye touch it" (that was good), "lest ye die.' Here she falters; she lost or left out part of the penalty in her repetition of it. God's sentence was, "Thou shalt surely die" (moth tamoth), " Dying thou shalt die;" that is, "Thou

The ser

shalt surely, terribly, disastrously die." But she said, "Lest ye die." Here she was letting go a fragment of God's word, and letting go, in that fragment, an element of strength, persistency and triumph. Well, then, the serpent said, when he had so far persuaded her, “Ye shall not surely die." You observe, he saw that he was listened to; that he was not repelled; that the real and only successful process of "resisting and he shall flee" was not adopted; and, therefore, having carried the outside fortification, he now approached nearer and closer, and assailed her still more vigorously. pent said, "Ye shall not surely die." You observe, he quoted God's word incorrectly. "You may find it otherwise, and something good, not evil, may happen to you; but you shall not surely die;" thus assuming to be a messenger from God; for even Satan is transformed into an angel of light. "Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened." Instead of a calamity overtaking you, "ye shall be as gods," or "God; " for I told you that Elohim (God) is generally used in the plural number (gods); and, therefore, "as gods" should be translated as God himself;" that is, you may take a step in that upward and glorious progression which is the destiny of an immortal being, and, instead of sinking as you fancy, you shall be "as God himself, knowing good and evil.”

The expression, "knowing good and evil," would seem to indicate that Eve had some idea of what evil was, and that there was, therefore, as I shall explain to you in the course of my sermon, evil prior to the creation of man. And, therefore, it may be presumed that she had been informed of such an occurrence before. And the very penalty, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," implies that Adam had some idea of what death was; for how could it be a penalty that they should dread, if they had not some idea of what death really meant?

"And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," she forgot the prohibition. Many things taste sweet, but they may not be right. Many things look beautiful, but they may not be lawful. Eve, therefore, instead of falling back on God's prohibition, "Thou shalt not," looked at the attractions of the thing, not at the testimony of God who made it, and made her senses the arbiters of right and wrong. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," believing what Satan said, "she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." You observe, in her utterance of this last sentence, she had lost all recollection of God's prohibition. She accepted and believed Satan's prophecy, and she saw, too, that the tree was good for food, and, therefore, reckless of the interdict of God, she ate of it. Men do things without thinking whether God has said “Thou shalt," or, "Thou shalt not; " judging only of the pleasure of the thing, and forgetting that the blossom often that looks the most beautiful, and smells the most fragrant, contains in itself the most deadly poison.

Adam took of it also. It seems remarkable that he did not hesitate. Nothing is said about his hesitation; and it was, no doubt, under her influence and eloquent persuasion, or, very likely, from the warm attachment that he had to her, that made him so easily capitulate. It is the fact, still, that woman's power is not as ours is masculine, or mainly intellectual; but, yet, she wields a power, more subtle it may be, less felt and seen it may be, but not less surely successful. And many husbands, who think they are the governors, are practically the most thoroughly governed. And so Adam, without protesting, without one recorded word of doubt, obeyed his wife, and took of the fruit, " and he did eat."

And then "the eyes of them both were opened," and they discovered, what they never thought of before, "that they were naked," and they heard God's voice, once so lovely, — no longer musical, but the reverse, — saying, "Where art thou?" What has become of you? Adam gave as his apology what he at first saw, that he was naked, and therefore had run to hide himself. And God, desirous he should see there was something wrong, said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" Whenever you see anything wrong in a man's mind, you should always try to ascertain whether the cause of it is not what God attributes as the cause of Adam's disorder, "Hast thou eaten of that which I forbade thee?" Trouble has a visible or invisible, but real, connection with sin.

me;

Now, what was Adam's excuse? Just what we should have expected. The whole of this is so exquisitely true to nature, it is so completely what we should have thought to be our own habit, or temper, or practice, in similar circumstances, that we must see that, if this were not inspired, Moses must have been infinitely more than man. Adam said not, "O God, I have sinned, I have broken thy law, have mercy upon but, “The woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Surely this was very cowardly on the part of Adam. It was not only so, but it indicated also a terrible degeneracy. He threw the blame off his own shoulders, where it justly rested, and put it on the shoulders of poor Eve; as if she alone was guilty, and he purely innocent. And what seemed designed to lighten her load was meant at the same time to dishonor God. He therefore said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, gave me.” Why didst thou give me such a woman? If thou art angry with me for eating this, remember " the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, it was she gave me of the tree." And

thus he threw the blame partly upon Eve, and partly upon God; but, as to himself, he, self-righteous man, deserved no condemnation. Is not this human nature still? God, mercifully silent here, where censure was so deeply deserved, spoke to the woman, traced it to her, and said, "What is this that thou hast done?" Now, just notice how completely the woman was the reflection of the man. "And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." I am perfectly innocent, I deserve no censure, I could not help it; it was "the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." I am not to blame, says the young man; it was my position, my habit, my temper, my circumstances, ten thousand things except myself; the character of man being, that he does not care where the guilt lies, so that he can throw it off his own shoulders. God bore and forbore, and, graciously silent still, he turned to the serpent, and said, "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go," - -the very curse indicating indirectly, but really, how the serpent had moved before," and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and 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." Here is the first promise of the Gospel. It sounds along the centuries. We translate the seed, "it;" whereas it should be "HE," since afterwards it is rightly translated "his." In the Douay translation it is translated, "She shall bruise thy head;" and there is a foot-note that states, "She, the woman." Now, every person who knows the Hebrew grammar is aware that the word here used is Hu, which must be either masculine or neuter. It cannot be feminine. It must be masculine here, and it ought to be translated "he." And if we take the Septuagint version, which was made three hundred years before the birth of Christ, and therefore quite irrespective of any subsequent or present controversy, we shall