THE TEMPTATION.

In

IN this interesting illustration, Adam appears in the foreground leaning against a bank, as if he had been absorbed in admiration of those magnificent works of his Creator by which he is surrounded. Eve approaches him with the interdicted fruit, the abstaining from which constituted the special stipulation of the first covenant. There is a shrinking timidity in her approach, indicating an awakening consciousness of which she has not yet felt the full force, that strikingly contrasts with the unembarrassed deportment of the yet innocent father of mankind. In Eve we distinguish the first symptom of guilt. her right hand she holds the fatal object of temptation, which she had just plucked, and in her left a branch of the tree of knowledge. With this she partly covers herself, as if already conscious of her nakedness, and presents the fruit to Adam. "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 took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."* The landscape is intended to convey an idea of the earthly paradise which, in the perfection of its beauty, was no doubt a type of the heavenly. Lofty hills are seen in the distance blending in most agreeable harmony with the minuter features of the scene; exhibiting at once the magnificence and variety of the primitive creation. Nearer, more gentle declivities appear sloping down into fertile valleys laved by crystal streams, that fertilize and adorn the plain. The cedar tree, which after became so celebrated as the cedar of Libanus, here stands conspicuous, towering "in pride of place" above all the other trees by which it is surrounded.

THE JUDGMENT OF ADAM AND EVE.

THE scene is now changed from innocence to guilt; from a condition of perfect happiness to one of "lamentation and mourning and woe." "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?" The Schechinah, or visible glory from which the voice of God was heard, appears bursting through the lofty trees in the foreground and shining with an awful intensity, as if the anger of the Lord was visibly kindled at the base ingratitude of his creatures. That voice which had hitherto been the harbinger of joy, now thrills their souls with a presentiment of the most awful visitation. The light through which it is poured upon the ear of the conscious delinquents, has a brightness that innocence might survey with delight, but which is terrible to the contemplation of guilt. The eye of the transgressors quailed beneath the intensity of its blaze. Adam appears appalled at the sight, while Eve sinks to the earth with a mute but despairing conviction of her fall. The branch, which she had so indiscreetly plucked, lies before her, at once a memorial of her guilt and of her shame. The accession of knowledge to Adam is manifested by the consciousness of his nakedness, which he has endeavoured partly to hide. The landscape represents a retired vista of the garden of Eden.