what temporary gratifications of various sorts he might derive from capriciously exercising it on his dependant beings; and from sporting for his own enjoyment with them, as we do with what is at our mercy. Let us recollect the provocations which uncountable millions are every moment giving to him by their misconduct, absurdities, and disobedience; and we shall feel that his steadiness in resisting the temptations and excitations which he must be undergoing, and the self-government which he must be every moment practising, must be as marvellous, and are really as incomprehensible by us, as any other power and quality of his adorable and indescribable nature. He imposes no precept upon us, of which he does not present to us in his own conduct a magnificent example of spontaneous practice.

Thus we see that our paradisiacal ancestors could not but have to acquire, from the beginning of their beings, this habitual power of withstanding temptation and of continual self-government of their inclinations, wishes, appetites, and powers, and of obeying their Divine Instructer; they were even in danger of being misled by each other. Each had to attain and practise against the other, the resolution and the ability not to yield to any suasion or influence when the request was improper, the advice erroneous, or the entreaty prejudicial. Love, a beauty and a blessing as it is, would, to them as to us, be as pernicious as a fiend's hatred, without this self-guarding and self-commanding power. How many myriads have been victims even to intending kindness, not purposely misleading, for want of this acquired independence and wisely-resisting power!

These views seem to present to us the rationale of the events in paradise-the leading principles on which they were permitted or appointed to take place.*

It is a curious fact, that the Mexicans had a tradition of the history of Eve, and a representation of it, in their symbolical paintings. Humboldt thus mentions the circumstance.

In describing the hieroglyphical paintings of the Mexicans in the Borgian Museum, at Veletri, he says, that No. 1, Cod. Borg. fol. 11, represents "the mother of mankind, the serpent woman, Cihua cohuatl." Another, No. 2, "the same serpent woman, the Eve of the Mexicans." -Humb. Researches, vol. ii. p. 83, 4.

Of the Codex Vaticanus, he mentions, "the group, No. 2, represents the celebrated serpent woman Cihua cohuatl, called also Quilatzi or Tonacacihua, woman of our flesh. She is the companion of Tonacateuctli. The Mexicans considered her as the mother of the human race

LETTER XIII.

Considerations on the Transgression of Adam and Eve, and on the Divine Plan with respect to that event-Its Results-Thoughts on the Conduct of the Deity towards them and their posterity.

ل

THE new-made beings did not attain that self-government nor that docility, without which human existence could not but become a frequent scene of moral evil. Not even their veneration or love for their Creator and Benefactor, was of force sufficient to restrain them from that action and gratification which would be the beginning of it, and the certain cause of more, by disregarding and disobeying his counsels and commands.

The natural inclination to do what they chose, and to have a pleasure within their own easy reach, overcame their resolutions and motives to obey. They plucked, they ate, they sinned, they showed their own weakness and folly. They committed a disobedience which, having once done, they were certain to repeat. I believe they did no more than what every one of their descendants would have done. As far as I can judge and feel of myself, I have no doubt that I should, in that state and stage of human being, have erred in the same manner. I think I have, in many parts of my life, in some respect or other, acted as wrongly, with as strong reasons to do otherwise, and with no greater temptations than they had to resist. I can have, therefore, no doubt, that Adam and Eve, in these incidents, were a fair and full representation of human nature. In "Adam all sinned," because all would have sinned under the same circumstances, and all have ever since sinned in the same manner. Our first parents were not worse than any of their posterity. In them the natural powers and tendencies of their order of being, at its commencement, were fairly tried and put into action. The result corresponded with the cir

After the god of the celestial Paradise, Ometeuctli, she held the first rank among the divinities of Anahuac. We see her always represented with a great serpent."-Humb. ib. vol. i. p. 195. "Their Adam is called Tonacateuctli, or, Lord of our flesh." He is represented in the Codex Borgianus, fol. 9.--Humb, ib. 226.

VOL. II.-S

cumstances. It would have been the same if they had been immediately destroyed, and others created instead, to undergo a moral education by the same or by any other devised events. No moral being can start up at once like a mushroom, nor a babe be a man of knowledge and virtue in its cradle. If a thousand new creations of human kind had been made the experiments, in the room of Adam and his beautiful companion, all would have equally proved, by yielding to the temporary inclination in opposition to the prohibition that human nature, in that stage of its being, had not the self-regulating power, nor the spontaneous will, nor the persevering wisdom, to govern its actions by its Creator's commands, nor to restrain itself as its own welfare required; nor would, in a paradise of continual enjoyment, acquire what it was thus deficient in. It was, therefore, of no use to make a new Adam and Eve in their stead. It would be more beneficial for the moral formation of the human race, to effect that gradually which could not be achieved immediately; and therefore that the offending pair should be continued, and that they should be acted upon so that their very sin should, from the consequences which would be attached to it, become an everlasting admonition and instruction to themselves and to mankind. This would make their very transgression, by its painful consequences, a perpetual benefit and friendly Mentor to them. It was, therefore, a part of the divine plan, that although they had transgressed, they should not be immediately destroyed, but be taught and disciplined instead, and thus be made to feel the folly of the disobedience, by an abiding conviction from its painful result. The threatened death was fastened by the disobedience upon them and their race, because human beings that would not be counselled and guided by their God, and would not use self-restraint, were not those whom he meant to make immortal, or who could be so, with lasting happiness to themselves or others. The species of human kind to whom he designed to give an eternity of life and happiness, were to be those only who would, with affectionate and grateful docility, be instructed and governed by him; and who would train themselves to such habits, and moralized mind and will, as such obedience and self-government would produce.

Hence on the day of their disobedience, death began his

1

dominion in the human world, and became fixed for ever on human nature on this earth, as long as any of Adam's posterity should be upon it." Sin then entered the world, and death by sin."* On that day he brought mortality upon himself and all; a prospect of an everlasting perpetuity of being had been presented to him, if his obedience had been unfaltering. But this wonderful boon, one of the greatest that an eternal Being can give, was not to be the enjoyment of a selfish, vacillating, unsteady, uncertain, ungovernable, or undutiful spirit; it was therefore taken away at that time and on that event from this world, and from all that would here resemble their first parents in fickleness and misconduct, to be connected with and be afterward offered, as a new and special promise of divine benevolence to mankind, by HIM who first brought, really and authoritatively, life and immortality to light, in the grand future which he opened to us; and who devoted himself to the most ignominious punishment which human laws then inflicted on the greatest human crime, in order to secure the future paradise and Sabbath to us.t

The continuance of Adam and Eve in a paradise of every sensorial delight, would not be at all likely to increase their

Romans v. 12.

† I consider vice, crime, and sin to be the three terms which designate immoralities, or wrong actions, according to their relative effects and connexions. VICE is the more personal denomination, as they concern ourselves. We are vicious in practising them, because they bring an individual stain and depreciation and deterioration upon us. CRIME is their appellation as they affect others; as actions which have been denounced and forbidden by social laws and feelings, from their injurious results to others. We are criminal in doing them, in the eye of the established laws, of the appointed tribunals, and of our fellow-beings. But SIN is their peculiar character, as between ourselves and God. It is the brand which is fixed upon them with reference to him, to his moral government, to his sovereignty and honour, and to the wellbeing of his universe. All wrong actions of mankind, or of any other order of reasoning beings, are SINFUL in his sight, because they are always in counteraction to his wishes, plans, and purposes: they are a direct disobedience to him, and therefore a revolt from our natural allegiance to him, and an act of rebellion against him. Sin is therefore always represented as associated with his displeasure; for it is always, in every shape, in some degree or other, a producer of evil, and a cause of its continuance and perpetuity. It is ever invading the welfare and happiness of some part of his living and sentient family, and is always impeding or preventing their improvements. It is these consequences, besides the blot it keeps up in the moral beauty of creation, which have occasioned sin to be characterized as "exceeding sinful."

disposition for self-restraint. Continued enjoyment makes self-indulgence more natural and more dear to us, and fosters an aversion to diminish it, while it weakens the power of foregoing it. It was also certain that no future precept would be regarded in opposition to inclination, if this, the first, and one so solemnly enforced, and with such consequences attached to it, could be disobeyed without any loss of comfort. Man would never be a moral being, if he could be immoral with impunity. The very best need the check of recollecting, that to indulge inclination against right and duty, involves painful consequences. Present experience is everywhere exemplifying this truth. Sound reasoning confirms it, and no wise being would desire to forget it.

It was therefore necessary to change the human abode into a less pleasurable and more educating state. It was important to the improvement of the founders of mankind, that they should learn, and their descendants know, that if they would not or could not submit to the regulations, or practise the self-government so requisite, they must be assisted to gain the habit of the right conduct, by finding the want of it to be displeasing to their Maker, and prejudicial to themselves. A removal from the garden of delight to the more common world in which their posterity were meant to live, was, for its tutoring effect, made the first result of their deliberate error.

Here they found a very different natural state and scenery of things. Spontaneous produce without toil or care no longer appeared. Plenty was no more to spring gratuitously from the earth. Man was decreed to obtain his subsistence by his manual labour.* Industry and exertion were made the future authors of comfort and gratification to him. Selfindulgence was to be purchased by previous privations. The remembrance of the loss of a happy state; toiling activity; anxiety for its success; difficulties and disappointments; occasional grief and sorrows,--were appointed to attend human life during its future stages, as admonishing memorials of the folly and error of not obeying the declared laws of the Creator, and of the painful results of preferring self-gratification to self-government, self-will to obedience, and self-indulgence to moral self-regulation. The paradise showed how he could

* Genesis iii. 17-19.