LETTER XI.

"AND GOD SAID, LET THE EARTH BRING FORTH THE LIVING CREATURE AFTER HIS KIND, CATTLE, AND CREEPING THING, AND BEAST OF THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND: AND IT WAS SO. AND GOD MADE THE BEAST OF THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND, AND CATTLE AFTER THEIR KIND, AND EVERY THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND: AND GOD SAW THAT IT WAS GOOD. 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."-Genesis i. 24-26.

MY DEAR CHILDREN,

We have now arrived at the last day of Creation. The Lord had called the world into being, and had shed his light upon it,―he had also surrounded it with an atmosphere graciously adapted for the beings he had destined to live upon it.-He had caused the dry land to appear, and covered it with fertility and beauty.-He had made the heavens to glow with the brightness of the sun by day, and to be illumined with the gentle rays of the moon, and with innumerable stars by night.-He had filled the air and sea with animated life.

And now, on this sixth day, he calls into existence a race of beings of a superior order to the birds and fishes; but yet merely animal; and all this being accomplished, there seems a pause in Creation.-It is no longer the simple FIAT, or word of God, "Let it be;" but there is counsel between the Holy Ones that bear record in heaven;* and the all important word is, "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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he 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 bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the 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 the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the

Compare Genesis iii. 22, xi. 7, Isaiah vi. 8, with Matt. xxviii. 19, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, 1 John v. 7.

heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Gen. i. 26-31; ii. 1-3.)

I have quoted at large the order of the Creation of the sixth day; and the institution of the primeval or first sabbath-the rest of God, (Heb. iv. ;) and as I attentively perused the verses in copying them, one thing forcibly struck me-the absence of death. Now, indeed, death reigns on every side, as we have abundantly seen in the fish of the deep and fowl of the air; but THEN all animated being subsisted on the herb of the field. All was sinless—all was deathless: for had there been no sin, there could have been no death; because death is the effect of sin. There was no beast or bird of prey in Eden-the leopard and the lamb lay down together, and the lion ate straw like the ox; and nothing did hurt or destroy in all God's vast creation. And in "the times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken of by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began,” (Acts iii. 21,) this shall again be the case, as is beautifully brought before us in the 11th of Isaiah. But of this I will write more at large in my next letter: but we will now consider the threefold character of this day's Creation,-1st, the Quadrupeds; 2nd, the Serpents; 3rd, the Insect family;-and having looked at these three separately in