sinned as Adam and Eve did.

For do you

not know, my young friend, how often you have bad thoughts and feelings, and said and done things, which you knew, at the time, to be sinful, just as Eve knew it was sinful for her to wish to eat the forbidden fruit, and to take some from the tree and eat it.

You wonder, perhaps, when you read about this fall of Adam and Eve, that they could not be contented with all that delicious fruit with which the trees in the garden were loaded, but must listen to what a wicked and deceitful tempter said, and, for the sake of eating of the fruit of one more tree, expose themselves to the terrible displeasure of God.

You wonder that, while God had done so much to make them good and happy, they could forget it all, and disbelieve what he said, and disobey one who had been so full of tenderness to them.

Ah! my young friend, all sin is just the same kind of folly, and unbelief and ingratitude.

Has not God been very kind to you? Has he not done a great deal to make you

good and happy? Has he not given you all that you need, and all that is best for you ? If you love and obey him, and those whom he has placed over you to take care of you, will you not have the highest kind of happiness which you can have in this world?

Why do you so often wish to reach after and get some forbidden fruit; something which you know your parents or teachers have prohibited, or which God himself has prohibited you from having or doing?

Ah! while you wonder at poor, simple Adam and Eve, wonder at your own folly and wickedness! See, how exactly you are like them. Feel sorry for having committed the same kind of sin which they did. Do not feel proud and boastful, and say that if you had been in Eden, and been tempted by Satan as they were, you would not have acted as they did. You have acted as they did. You are as guilty as they were. You are exposed to that awful punishmemt with which God threatened them, if they should disobey him. You are exposed to it, and must endure it all, both in this and the future world, unless you go to God-sorry, humble, broken-hearted on account of your

sins-beseeching him, because Christ died for sinners, to forgive you; trusting in this Saviour, and praying that God would lead you, by his Holy Spirit, to be like Christ.

You have been like Adam; will you not wish, and strive, and pray to be like Christ? But what became of Adam and Eve after they had eaten the forbidden fruit? How did they feel; what did they do?

They soon felt ashamed and guilty. They felt how ungrateful and disobedient they had. been to their kind Heavenly Father. They felt afraid to meet him. They dreaded his displeasure. They trembled at the thought of the punishment which he had threatened, and which they knew they deserved. They lamented their folly in believing what Satan had told them. They found that they did indeed know both good and evil, but in a way far different from that which he had promised, and which they had expected.

Wretched in looking back upon what they had done, and in looking forward to what they must suffer, they had nothing to make them happy; nothing in themselves; nothing in the delightful garden that was around

them; and nothing in God, should he again come to meet them as he had done before.

He did come to meet them. It was in the cool of the day, and they heard his voice in the garden. They had often heard that voice with gladness, and it would again have filled them with joy, if they had not sinned.

But now it alarmed them. They dreaded to meet the great and glorious being from whom it came. Trembling, and fleeing from it," they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden."

You have felt just so, my young friend, when you have done wrong, and were afraid of being found out. Sometimes you may have run away and hid yourself as Adam and Eve did; and at other times, you have wished to avoid the eye of some one-of your parent or teacher-and would have hid yourself from their look if you could have done it.

How unpleasant such feelings are. But how happy a person feels when he can look every body full in the face, fearing no eye that shall examine him, and no tongue that shall ask him a question.

How happy you have felt when you could

run and meet your father, or mother, or teacher, and hear their voice, and catch their kind look, and let them see that you look as an obedient and happy child always does.

Be obedient to them. Be obedient to God, if you wish to enjoy this happiness. Remember how Adam and Eve hid themselves in the garden, and pray to God that he would keep you from sinning, that so you may be kept from shame and fear.

STORY IV.

THE SENTENCE.

It is very hard when a person has done wrong, to feel sorry for it, and to confess it, and ask to be forgiven.

Some excuse is always made. The command to do, or not to do, a particular thing, was forgotten. It was not supposed to mean exactly so. The offender did not intend to do just as he did. It turned out to be much worse than was expected. There was a mis

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