self and her busband. She ought to have perceived her danger, and to have fled immediately from the temptation to which she was exposed. This would have been her true wisdom, and, as the event proved, the only safe course. But she still stood there, to hear what the tempter might yet have to

say.

With the effrontery of a downright liar, Satan renewed his attack.

:

"Ye shall not surely die for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

He wished to make Eve believe that there was not the least danger in eating the forbidden fruit, and that besides this, both she and Adam would gain a great good by eating it. In some way or other, it would enable them to know many new and curious things, just as a person who has been blind and has his sight restored, will open his eyes, and soon be able to see ten thousand beautiful and wonderful objects. He told her that they would know so much about both good and evil things, that they would be like God himself in knowledge.

In this way Satan tried to make Eve feel that God was too strict in his command, and that he ought to have permitted Adam and her to eat of all the fruit in the garden without any exception. He tried to make her feel uneasy and discontented, and think that by eating the forbidden fruit she would be a great deal happier and wiser than she then was. He even went so far as to say that the punishment God had threatened, in case of disobedience, would not be inflicted, and, of course, that God was not a God of truth.

When you are tempted, my young friend, to the commission of sin, remember that every such temptation, whether it comes from your own wicked heart, or from a wicked companion, is a lie. It is just such a lie as Satan told Eve. If you believe it; if you yield to it; if you do the evil thing, it is like saying, as Satan did, that God is a liar. For it is saying that you do not believe that what is true.

God says

He says, that he will certainly punish sinners with a most awful punishment. When you yield to temptation and sin against him, do you not say, by your conduct, that you

do not think that you shall really suffer punishment?

Dare you thus, as Satan did, charge the great God with falsehood? Dare you say or think that you can sin against him, and escape from the punishment which he has threatened against the wicked?

What he threatens, he will do. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

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Fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell: yea I say unto you, fear him."

Fear to sin against him. Fear the begining of wicked thoughts and feelings. Pray earnestly to God for his Holy Spirit, that you may be immediately delivered from them.

STORY III.

THE FALL.

AFTER hearing what Satan had to say, Eve did not reprove him for saying it, which shows that she was doing very wrong in thus listening to so wicked a tempter. Her

danger was greatly increasing. She was approaching the final step. One earnest prayer to God for strength and diliverance; one look away from the tree; one resolution to retreat and find her husband, and share his sympathy and support; one such struggle, and she would have been safe, and the great adversary of souls would have been baffled and defeated in his malicious purpose.

But his false and treacherous suggestions had begun to beguile her. She looked with an intenser gaze on the forbidden fruit, which hung so invitingly before her eyes. Its form and appearance led her to suppose that, like the other fruit in the garden, it would be "good for food." Then it looked fair and ripe, and, with its beautiful color, was "pleasant to the eyes." She thought, too, of what Satan had just told her, and felt that the fruit was "to be desired to make one wise."

Poor, foolish, sinful Eve! How could she thus dare to believe what the father of lies told her, and doubt the truth of God in his awful threatening against disobedience! She drew nearer to the tree. She yielded to the charm of the tempter. Her desire of

gratification grew stronger and stronger. Her imagination was entranced with the delirium of anticipated, godlike wisdom. Her reason was beclouded. Her conscience slumbered. Her will was captivated. She stretched out her hand, and plucked and ate.

It was not long before Adam met her. Having sinned herself,—just as wicked persons now do, she wished not to be alone in the trangression. She, in her turn, became the tempter of her husband. She succeeded. She gave him some of the fruit-and he ate.

They fell. They fell from the state in which they had been,-from being good and happy, from being obedient to God and enjoying his friendship and favour,—into sin ; -into disobedience to God, and the beginning to suffer that punishment which he had threatened, if they should break his command.

This was the fall, and it brought sickness, and pain, and sorrow, and death into the world. It brought sin, too, the worst of all evils. Adam and Eve's children were sinners. And their children were sinners, and so on down to this time. All, have sinned; you and I, and every body.

We have