plurality tends to disappear, and to resolve itself into unity. That space of time, then, which, in one view of the creation, may be truly seen to be composed of six, or of seven days, may, in another more sublime contemplation of it, be recognised as one, as "the day" in which the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5. AND EVERY PLANT OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT WAS IN THE EARTH, AND EVERY HERB OF THE FIELD BEFORE IT GREW: FOR THE LORD GOD HAD NOT CAUSED IT TO RAIN UPON THE EARTH, AND THERE WAS NOT A MAN TO TILL THE GROUND.

In one view, the first part of this verse

may be taken as an illustration of what has just been alluded to, respecting the manner in which, by exalted and purified intelligences, the developments of things may be seen in their first principles, so that the full creation may by them be recognised in what, to grosser minds, will

appear but the distant preparation for their being called into existence. But the whole verse may be read in a sense yet more sublime. It seems to be stated that, before there was a man to till the ground, before the rain from the skies had been commissioned to moisten it, the Almighty Creator caused the rich vegetation of the earth to appear, and to cover it with the beauty which, in the ordinary course of His providence, it derives, under Him, from the labour of human hands, and from the genial showers of heaven. By a sort of anticipation, if we may reverently say so, He appears to have blessed these means of beauty and fertility before they were, and to have produced their natural effects as though in virtue of their future and intended operation. And it seems almost impossible to avoid acknowledging, in this, the shadow of God's dealings of mercy with

our race from the first, out of respect unto Him Who, in the fulness of time, was to come as its Head. That the sun gives his light, that trees and herbs grow and flourish in the earth, that seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, do not cease; all these blessings, and all the spiritual ones which they figure or convey, are, and have from the first, been bestowed on man for the sake of Christ. But these were bestowed through successive generations and ages, and even thousands of years, and yet He came not. Men had still to look forward to Him Whose "going forth is prepared as the morning;" and Who was to come unto them "as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth," Who was to come unto the mystical earth prepared for Him, "like the rain into a fleece of • Hos. vi. 3.

wool," not abhorring the Virgin's womb; and Who, in the gifts of His Spirit, was to "cause the shower to come down in his season"," sending a "gracious rain” upon His "inheritance," and refreshing "it when it was weary." Yet, through all this long period of expectation, did countless saints flourish as green plants in the garden of the Lord, though "the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."

6. BUT THERE WENT UP A MIST FROM THE EARTH, AND WATERED THE WHOLE FACE OF THE GROUND.

A " mist," our translation has it, fons, "a fountain," as it is in the Vulgate. Whichever of these words be the most accurate, what is meant is, evidently, some source of water or moisture from the earth, not from the clouds, like the rain on which the vegetable world now depends for its life and growth.

P Ezek. xxxiv. 26.

G

a Psalm lxviii. 9.

Paradise was complete in itself; fit in all things for the support of man, its pure and holy inhabitant; pronounced by the Almighty Creator to be "very good;" and doubtless as excellent in its kind, as fit for the purposes of its creation, as is the heaven of heavens itself for its celestial and glorified inhabitants. It was not, what our earth now is, insufficient for itself, and dependent, even for the most necessary elements, on agencies and operations without it: but it contained within itself the sources of life and refreshment to the flowers and trees which clothed it with unfading beauty. "There went up a mist from the earth," and as we afterwards read, "a river went out of Eden to water the garden." In this, as in other things, did the earthly Paradise reflect the image of that where "the fountain of the water of life"" flow

Rev. xxi. 6.