Olympas. True, he was commanded to dress and preserve the garden as God gave it to him. The reason of this is, there is no happiness in being idle. Indeed, there is no enjoyment but in employment. If we do not look, our eyes afford no pleasure; if we do not listen, our ears cannot charm us; unless we use that wonderfully constructed instrument the hand, we can neither admire nor enjoy it. Goodness, then, ordained that man should work. Every wise and good father will teach his sons and daughters to employ themselves in business, that they may enjoy themselves that they may be useful and happy. For this reason it is that I am at so much pains to teach my sons agriculture and horticulture; and that your mother employs her daughters in domestic affairs. If king Adam, the richest sovereign that ever lived, made his children labour, who were joint heirs of all the goods and chattles, of all the real and personal property on the terraqueous globe, can it ever be a disgrace to any other king's son to be industrious? What say you, William ?

William. I should rather think it a disgrace to be idle. Indeed all the idle boys at our school are bad boys; and Mr. Turner, our teacher, says all the young men in this parish who have no trades, and whose parents think it a disgrace for them to use their hands, are vicious and likely to be an injury to society.

Olympas. What think you of Eve, William? Was she a good woman?

William. If to acknowledge the Lord in every thing, and to teach religion to one's children, be the marks of a good woman, I think Eve was a

good woman; for she acknowledged the Lord when Cain was born, and taught her sons to worship God; and that is all we know of her.

Olympas. How do you know that she so instructed her sons, Eliza?

Eliza. So soon as Cain and Abel are next heard of, they were employed in worshipping God by presenting sacrificial offerings. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord, and Abel also brought some of the best lambs in his flock. Now unless their parents so taught them, I cannot see how they would set about making such religious presents to the Lord.

Olympas. Can any of you tell why these offerings were presented to the Lord? Did he need them? Did he ask them? Or were they offered of their own accord ?

Reuben. The Lord can need nothing, because his is the heavens and the earth; and he imparts to all whatever they possess and enjoy. But he must have either asked or commanded these offerings; else I know not how they could have thought of presenting either bread or flesh to the Lord who created them for man's use. Please, uncle, explain this subject to us?

Olympas. There is, indeed, no record of the institution of these offerings to the Lord; but that they were divinely ordained cannot be doubted— not only from the impossibility of demonstrating how a rational being could conclude by any fair process of reasoning that such things could be pleasing to God who first gave them, more especially in the immediate family of Adam; but also and still more evidently from the fact, that God accepted Abel's and rejected Cain's offering. Now

where there is no law there is no transgression, and consequently no obedience. There was, then, a law of offerings which Cain transgressed and Abel obeyed. Hence the one was accepted and the other rejected by the Lord.

Olympas. Can you not, Reuben, find in Paul's writings some comment upon the offerings of Cain and Abel?

Reuben Paul to the Hebrews says, "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain."

Olympas. This, then, is demonstration that there was not only a command for sacrifice, but also some testimony of promise concerning it: for as there can be no obedience without law, there can be no faith without testimony. In the original there is no word for excellent: it is simply "more sacrifice." And the Hebrew may be translated in conformity to this, Gen. iv. 4. "Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord: Abel also brought it, and of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof." That Paul so understood it, is farther evident from these words: "God testified of Abel's gifts." "More sacrifice," then indicates more gifts. But it was not only

because of the number of gifts, but of the principle from which he offered, that he was approbated. Faith distinguished the sacrifice of Abel. Therefore there was some promise, some testimony of God regarded in the offering of Abel, not seen nor regarded in that of Cain. We cannot doubt what the promise was. It was the hope of Adam and of Eve concerning the seed of her's that was ordained to break the serpent's head. Abel's lamb, then, was Christ in type. That rock was

Christ said Paul, when speaking of Horeb. That lamb of Abel was, in the same style, "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Have we any account of slain beasts before the days of Cain and Abel, Thomas?

Thomas Dilworth. That they were slain by God's own appointment before Cain was born, we are not told in so many words; and yet, as you say concerning sacrifice, we are sure they were killed by divine authority; for God clothed Adam and Eve with their skins.

Olympas. Might not those animals whose skins our first parents wore have been killed for food, or have died a natural death?

Thomas Dilworth. Man was not allowed to kill and eat till after the flood; and we cannot conceive why animals should already have died; or if they had, we cannot imagine that God would have taken the skins of diseased animals to cover man, respited as he then was, from the grave. There is but one conclusion admissible, viz.—that God taught sacrifice to Adam and Eve immediately after the Fall, and covered them with the skins of the first victims of death. The blood of atonement was the first blood that fell upon this earth; and before a sinner died a sin offering was made.

Olympas. That is a glorious fact. Satan thought to kill and destroy the whole human race; but before any one died even a natural death a sacrificial lamb was slain, and expiation taught from the day that God tore off the flimsy tattered figleaf garments of our parents and covered them with the spoils of the first death which the sun saw, the winds breathed, or nature heard. Mark

the difference between the two suits-that prepared by Adam and that put on by God! How much more permanent and useful the skins of sacrificial victims compared with fig-leaves! Do you recollect, Reuben, when reading the fifth chapter of Romans, what was the definition of the word atonement?

Reuben. I think you said it meant a covering, inasmuch as the Hebrew word copher is rather anglicized than translated by coffer or covering, The verb to cover is frequently translated to atone, to propitiate; because there must be a hiding or covering of faults-an expiation-before there can be a reconciliation or a remission.

Olympas. You are right in your recollections. Pray tell me, James, did God accept the offering of Cain ?

James. No: he accepted that of Abel, but not that of Cain.

Olympas. Tell me, Thomas, how was known?

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Thomas. By some sensible demonstration. think when going through Genesis before, you said it was probably consumed by fire from heaven, as was the sacrifice at Aaron's consecration-those offered by Gideon, Solomon, and Elijah on Mount Carmel, &c.

Olympas. We could not explain the wrath of Cain on any other principle, than that there was a manifest acceptance of Abel's offering and a rejection of his. Filled with jealousy and envy, his countenance fell; being the first born, and consequently expecting more, he received less Lord his junior brother. What, Mary, did the than say to him?