His

culated to cherish in his heart a salutary sentiment of humility, when he regarded himself, and of gratitude, when he looked up to the Beneficent Giver. This reservation was also intended to serve as a test of submission and obedience. It was, in fact, man's only trial. moral and intellectual faculties were so nicely adjusted, and his desires were so fully gratified, that he had no temptation to harbor one uneasy or undutiful thought. He had not a wish beyond the paradise in which he lived. But here, one restraint was laid upon his liberty. There was only one; but, on that very account, it might be felt to be more galling in the first movements of a restless and impatient spirit. What could this prohibition mean? The fruit of the tree was "pleasant to the eyes;" it seemed to be delicious; it was surely wholesome, for it was formed by Him who made all things very good; certainly it was not created in vain; why should this form the only exception to the grant of food? There was something contrary to the usual dealings of a Paternal Governor in such an exception. Was it not needless? Was it not capricious? Could it really be intended?

Such might possibly be the progress of the temptation in the mind of our first parents; and, while Eve was permitting the slow poison to work, the tempter came, and found her prepared for his malicious purposes. The interview it is unnecessary particularly to describe. It was the spirit of evil, full of subtlety, contending with unsuspecting innocence, in an unguarded hour. was short and decisive. Man fell, and the ness triumphed.

The contest power of dark

There are some most mysterious circumstances attending this transaction. With reference to the Divine Government, indeed, it concentrates in itself all mystery. Within the range of the human faculties, there is nothing embarrassing and incomprehensible in the administration of the Eternal, which may not be referred to the existence of moral evil, first manifested to the human race in this transaction. It had previously been introduced among a higher order of beings; it was hence

forth to shed a blight on the history of man. We believe its truth; we see its unhappy consequences; we know also the remedy provided: we perceive an amazing scheme connected with it, full of ineffable grace, and overflowing love; but yet, clouds and darkness brood around it.

"Lo, this only have I found," says Solomon, "that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions." It was, doubtless, the abuse of free will, implied in these words, which lay at the bottom of Adam's transgression. He was made free, and therefore liable to fall. Freedom of will is a property inherent in reason, and forming indeed part of its very essence.

De

prive man of freedom of will in the exercise of his rational powers, and you deprive him of reason itself. You render him a mere machine, governed by external impulses. Man possessed this noble but dangerous gift. He abused it, and was ruined.

In turning to the subordinate circumstances of this transaction, one of the most remarkable appears to be, the assumption, by the archtempter, of the form of a serpent. Our utter ignorance of many peculiarities in the state of existence, during those ages of innocence, renders it impossible to understand why this disguise should be the best adapted for gaining his end. That it was so, however, is intimated, when it is said, that "the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made ;" and that he was afterwards degraded from his original condition, both in form and in faculties, appears more than probable from the tenor of the curse pronounced on this instrument of the Evil One :-"Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat, all the days of thy life.”

But, however this may be, it is at least certain, that the condition of the serpent has been, ever since the fall of man, what is described in these words; and the last, and most emphatic part of the curse, has also been fulfilled to the letter. "I will put enmity between thee

and the woman, and between thy seed, and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

That these latter words, however, contain a deeper meaning than the literal phrase imports, has been constantly and universally understood by the interpreters of Divine Revelation. They contain, in fact, a prophecy of that glorious event, predetermined in the counsels of the Eternal, by which, the calamity of the fall was to be repaired, and that which was intended to mar the work of the Creator, was to afford a new occasion of causing his perfections to shine forth with additional splendor and loveliness. In a sense unspeakably superior to the literal, 66 the seed of the woman" has bruised "the head of the serpent."*

EIGHTH WEEK-MONDAY.

REPTILES.-THE SAURIAN TRIBES.

If we are to believe geologists, there was a period in the history of the earth, when saurians, or animals of a similar type with the crocodile and lizard of the present day, held supreme sway over sea and land. This was

the period of the secondary formation, when the ground is supposed to have been little elevated above the surface of the waters, and when almost interminable swamps and shallows required a peculiar form of animals, with functions, instincts, and habits accommodated to this state of the terraqueous globe.

66

"The peculiar feature in the population of the whole series of secondary strata," observes Dr. Buckland, was the prevalence of numerous and gigantic forms of saurian

* [The foregoing paper, which has been left unaltered by the Editor, appears to be a perfectly fair, and in its main principles a just exposition of the difficult subject, which it briefly discusses. It is, however, but the exposition of an individual; and it may be well to enter a caution against receiving as final, or unsusceptible of modification, this or any interpretation of a confessedly obscure portion of Scripture.-AM. ED.]

reptiles. Many of these, were exclusively marine; others, amphibious; others, were terrestrial, ranging in savannas and jungles, clothed with a tropical vegetation, or basking on the margins of estuaries, lakes, and rivers. Even the air was tenanted with flying lizards, under the dragon form of pterodactyles."*

Those who take an interest in geological studies, will agree with this author, when, in another part of his work, he says, that, in reflecting on the large and important range assigned to reptiles, among the former population of our planet, many thousand years before the creation of its present inhabitants, "we cannot but regard, with feelings of new and unusual interest, the comparatively diminutive existing orders of that most ancient family of quadrupeds, with the very name of which, we usually associate a sentiment of disgust."

Of the order of saurians, which formed so distinguished a part of a former creation, the species which seems to approach nearest the type of this order of animals, as they existed in that early period, is the Gavial, or East India alligator. This formidable creature inhabits the borders of the Ganges. It differs from the crocodiles of Egypt, by having the jaws much narrower, and much more lengthened, so as to appear, in reference to the size of the head, very much like a beak. The teeth also are smaller and more numerous. Like the rest of its genus, it sometimes attains a very large size, compared with the other inhabitants of our present earth, extending to thirty feet; though the most enormous of them all would form a mere pigmy in the presence of some of the ancient race of the secondary formation.

The saurian reptiles, as they at present exist, may be popularly divided into crocodiles and lizards, each of which had its prototype in the monsters of the geological period to which we have alluded. The various tribes of this order differ much, in form and habits. Some are extremely slow in their movements, while others change their place with great agility. Some, frequent the waters,

* Geology, Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 74.

and always remain in their neighborhood, while others, such as the common lizard, are found basking in the sun on barren heaths. The crocodile tribe shall at present be selected as a specimen of this order.

Nature, says Lacépède, has granted to the eagle the higher regions of the atmosphere; has given to the lion, for his domain, the boundless deserts of the hot climates of the world; and has abandoned to the crocodile the shores of the sea, and of the mighty rivers of the torrid zone. These immense animals, living equally upon the inhabitants of the sea, and on those which the earth nourishes, exceed in size every other creature of their own order. They divide their prey, neither with the eagle, as the vulture, nor with the lion, as the tiger, but exercise a domination greater than either. They are less easily extirpated, as their property of frequenting both land and water enables them more readily to avoid the snares of their enemies. The low temperature of their blood, too, which endues them with the power of sustaining hunger for a considerable time, places them less frequently under the necessity of braving danger, for the sake of satisfying their appetite.

Naturalists have added to the gavial of India, and the crocodile of Egypt, already mentioned, another distinct species, or rather family, that of the alligator of America. In all these three regions of the world, where extensive swamps and lagoons exist under a burning sun, or broad rivers flow slowly, through low and reedy banks, these monstrous animals dispute possession with man, their only formidable enemy.

"In Louisiana," says an American author, speaking of the alligator, "all our lagoons, bayous, creeks, ponds, lakes, and rivers, are well stocked with them; they are found, wherever there is a sufficient quantity of water to hide them, or to furnish them with food; and they continue thus, in great numbers, as high as the mouth of the Arkansas River, extending east to North Carolina, and as far west as I have penetrated. On the Red River, before it was navigated by steam-vessels, they were so extremely abundant, that to see hundreds at a time along

III.

20

IX.