Being vouchsafed to give proofs of his immediate presence, not only to the understanding, but to the senses. By immediate communication he instructed the parents of the human race. He informed them of their fallibity, and of the state of probation in which they were placed, and warned them of the penalty they would incur through disobedience. Nor when the penalty was incurred did he withdraw the proofs of his superintending care from the guilty sufferers. Hitherto he had appeared to them in the attributes of wisdom, power, and goodness; they were now to see him as a God of justice and a God of mercy.

Justice pronounced the awful sentence of condemnation; mercy presented the cup of hope.

The account handed down to us, in the book of Genesis, of the creation

and

But

and fall of man, is so very brief, that it must of necessity be obscure. this briefness and obscurity are additional proofs of its authenticity. If you ever become acquainted with Oriental literature, you will perceive, that events which are stated by Moses within the compass of a few sentences, would have been amplified into volumes, had imagination been permitted to have any share in making up the record. Nor is the obscurity in which the inspired historian has left all that it imported not our happiness to know, a less decisive proof of his fidelity. Events transacted in a state of existence dissimilar to that in which we live, must necessarily be attended with circumstances impossible for us to comprehend. Supposing it possible for us to have access to the mind of an unborn child, and that its reasoning faculties

were

were as strong as those of a man in the prime of life, how should we describe to him the objects by which we see ourselves surrounded? How should we persuade him that those little eyes, which had hitherto been shut in darkness, were the organs by which this glorious scene was to be surveyed; that they were to open on the luminaries of heaven, to behold the brightness of the sun, and the mild radiance of the silver moon, and the earth clothed in verdure? How should we give him any idea of the change of seasons, the vicissitudes of cold and heat; to say nothing of the more complicated ideas of society?

With respect to any state of existence that is in its nature essentially different from the present state, wę are no less incapable of forming any. conception. All our arguments concerning it must therefore be futile

and

and absurd. A state of perfect innocence, such as we are told our first parents enjoyed, and a state of perfect happiness, such as we hope hereafter to enjoy, are equally above our comprehension. Enough concerning them has been revealed to confirm our faith, but not to satisfy our cu riosity. We must, however, observe, that though with regard to the state of innocence, the memorial appears obscure, and even imperfect, no obscurity rests upon the transactions immediately subsequent to its loss." And here another proof of the au thenticity of the record occurs to me, which, though unsupported by authority, I shall have the temerity to

mention.

In pronouncing sentence upon our first parents, the Supreme Being is represented as dooming the first transgressor to an additional load of suf

fering and sorrow; but at the same time, and as if to prevent the consequences of despair, as holding forth to her a peculiar hope.

We have here a lesson which ought, in my opinion, to be inculcated on every female heart. If properly applied, it would teach the woman who repines at want of power, and who boldly assumes it as her right, to be humbled by the reniembrance of her sex's weakness. It would at the same time prevent any from sinking under a painful sense of inferiority. Let her who, thinking meanly of her sex, relinquishes all hope all desire of improvement, let her remember, that when the first pair stood before the tribunal of an offended God, though the weakness of the woman was not accepted as an apology for her guilt, yet, that to her was granted the promise of salvation,

and