created with all their powers in full perfection, and entering at once upon the possession of an inheritance fresh in new-born beauty, and rich in fulness of bounties, on which the ALL-WISE and the ALL-MIGHTY had expended the resources of his creating energy, and pronounced "good." Who could tell, as they, of the pleasures of innocent enjoyment, of the beauty of holiness, of living in the love of God? while all on earth below and all in heaven above ministered to their happiness and their joy.

May we not picture before our imagination this first mother of the world and her two boys, herself seated on a moss-clad bank, and they standing before her, on some calm eventide. See that bigger boy, from his own shoulders taller than his brother. He is now but twelve, and yet he has all the outlines of a man. Look at those broad shoulders and strong limbs. Why if he grows thus till he is twenty he will surely be a giant! Watch his restless eye as it glances

hither and thither, overshaded by the black curls flowing over his noble forehead. He will assert his right of lordship, depend upon it, with either man or beast. But that other, his younger brother-what a contrast! If Cain gives pledge of being the image of his father, and something more, Abel is his mother's own. Mark his slender and delicate yet graceful form. How beautiful in its formation and symmetry. And how gracefully those auburn ringlets, parted from his fair forehead, flow down over his marble-like shoulders. Observe how those deep blue eyes seem to drink in, with meek intelligence, the lessons of his anxious and muchloved mother. What promises of piety and peace, of hope and heaven, seem already to dawn forth in the angel-like features of that loving boy. He is his mother's mirror; in him she sees herself. He is her hope and her joy.

And could we have observed these boys, as they grew up, and watched their movements as

they followed the bent of their own inclinations, we might have seen the elder lad wandering in the dark woods, and hiding in secret places, to waylay, with his club, the leopard or the tiger, whose spotted or striped skin he coveted for a covering; his meek brother never wandering thither, but amusing himself by watching the playful lambs and kids, or in feeding the gentle turtle doves. These were his favorite companions and playfellows; and they suited his placid and loving temper.

To us it may seem a hardship and a loss that these boys had none of the conveniences and comforts which we enjoy-no books in which to read—no works of art to admire. They had, however, two great pages spread out before them

-Heaven and Earth. The alphabet of heaven was composed of the stars, and the alphabet of earth of its rocks, and trees, and waters, and all the living things innumerable which peopled them. From these, by the direction of their

gifted father and their loving mother, they could learn lessons such as are taught to new-born angels, of the wisdom, and power, and goodness, of the Great Father of all.

And then, if no forms of artificial beauty, wrought by man's device, were ever seen by them, they had all the original forms of perfect beauty which the highest efforts of human skill only attempts to imitate. And it may be, that in that early age of the earth, before its fair face had been disturbed and sullied by the turbulent waters of the wide-spread and destructive deluge, many forms of beauty, in flowers, and plants, and fish, and fowl, and creeping-thing, existed, such as have not since been seen; at least not in such perfection. Then they were all fresh and perfect from the hands of God. And from these their minds would naturally, and at once, be led to admire and adore the Great Creator of all, without having their admiration drawn off by the imperfect imitations of human hands.

But there was one great lesson, or duty, which, above all others, these boys were taught; we have no doubt of that, for we find them doing it when they were grown up—one in the right way and the other in the wrong. Their father had raised, near their dwelling, a pile of stones, and every returning seventh day he had brought a kid or a lamb-a firstling from the flock-and laying it on this altar, had taken its life by shedding its blood. He always seemed very thoughtful and serious when he did this; and at the close of the ceremony they would all kneel down, and he would pray to the Most High to accept the offering, to remember his promise made in Eden, to forgive all their sins for the sake of Him who would one day bruise the serpent's head, to keep them from evil, and guide them by his Holy Spirit. This ceremony appeared to the boys as a very mysterious proceeding, and many were the inquiries which the younger of them made to his mother concerning