laced the heavens with his crimson, belted in gold. Upon the bright blue firmament, so exquisitely variegated, Eve had been, for some minutes, intensely gazing with a marked and melancholy interest. A profound sigh suddenly broke from her bosom, as a mingled glance of pity and love rested on her surrounding offspring, and some tears rolled down her cheeks. Adam saw

he trembled he unconsciously strained her (why he knew not,) closer and closer to his searching heart. A faint smile transiently crossed her cheek, as she threw upon him a fixed and ardent glance (it was the last!) of unutterable fondness - glued her cold and pale lips to his and bowing her head upon his breast, like a rose heavy with dew, sunk—with a feeble murmur into death.

*

The life of Adam was prolonged to see the ninth generation of his descendants. For seven generations of Seth's posterity, he saw them indeed flourish in righteousness. But, alas! the curse of Paradise was unrescinded. And oh, what a poignant trial had Adam's excessive age reserved for him. Every where, and in all around, he

traced the dark ruins of the fall. Created man exhibited the seeds of his first father's disobedience; and stern experience proved how bitter were the fruits that sprang from them. How stinging were, then, his renewed griefs for his fatal personal transgressions. How deep and barbed were his pangs for being the hapless origin of that discord, which had produced the murder of one son; and the exile of the murderer, his other; that other, too, branded by the Almighty. How must his declining life have been smitten with inexpressible pain, to behold the 'good seed' choked up, and the 'bad' so rankly luxuriant. Yes, he survived to be able to contemplate his own sins multiplied to infinity, strengthened by time, and threatening to overshadow the old world with one deadly darkness. Yes, he lived to converse for many years with Lamech, Noah's father, and therefore to remark the collecting of those clouds which were soon to burst forth in the deluge of the earth. Oh, to him death must have indeed approached in the guise of an angel of mercy, dispatched by his still pitying God, to seal his eyelids against the accumulating images of self-reproach. To what new horrors might not his calamitous pilgrimage, if further extended,

have been exposed! And yet, before he returned to dust, through the gloom of embryo ages, God graciously deigned to indulge his mental vision with a glimpse of the Deliverer' — of Him promised in the terrible hour of expulsion from of Him who was yet to crush everlast

Eden

ingly the Serpent's head!

Adam just gazed upon the glorious vision of futurity- and his eyes closed upon our world, for ever!

F

CHAP. III.

THE SONS OF GOD. THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN.

The population of the earth was, at this time, composed of the descendants of two families, deriving their origin from the two sons of Adam the wicked Cain, and the righteous Seth.

After the decease of the father of mankind, Seth's family, to fulfil the injunctions of its founder in his dying hour, emigrated from the plain opposite Eden, where it had hitherto resided, to occupy the mountains which overlooked the place of its former abode; and in which mountains Adam is said to have been buried.

It is evident that nothing but a powerful, an absorbing conviction of the necessity of this removal could have occupied Seth on the eve of his great change; and have given to his last in

junction the sacred solemnity it acquired. As such, it was regarded and implicitly adopted by the survivors; nor is it requisite to indulge in vague conjectures, or wander widely for the motives which prompted such a command. Before Seth expired, he must have discovered, with pain and fear, the critical situation of his descendants. He knew that contact with contagion engenders disease that a familiarity with vice may end in death- and that even the courteousness of polluted relatives is more dangerous than the broader features of sin in strangers, which disgust with their hideousness; and is often, too, more unerring in its success because its venom is conveyed by a less suspicious source.

The correctness of this opinion can best be shown by a review of the relative situation of the two families at the period of which we treat.

The posterity of Cain pursued the occupations of husbandry. The children of Seth were addicted to pastoral life. Nor were their respective pursuits more dissimilar than the principles which regulated their conduct. The family of the first adhered closely to a full portion of his wicked leaven, and the righteousness of the last, bequeathed by Seth, was diffused among his off