Chaldea, not far from the Persian gulf, and, between the cities now called Bagdad and Bassora. The garden of Paradise, with the river Euphrates running through it, is supposed to have been planted where Arecca now stands.

The first descendants of Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Cain cultivated the earth, and Abel tended flocks. At an appointed time,* each offered a sacrifice; that of Abel was accepted, while Cain's was rejected.

FANNY. How did God testify his pleasure on that occasion ?

MRS. M. The manner is not certain: probably by consuming one by fire from heaven on the one hand, as we read expressly that he did in subsequent cases; and forbearing to do so on the other. The distinction, however expressed, was made evident to the mind of Cain, for it inflamed him with rage, and instead of attending to the suggestion of his Creator, that he too might be accepted if he offered in faith and obedience, his jealousy instigated him to the murder of his innocent brother. (B. C. 3875). Some divines have imagined his mother to have believed, that she had received in him, the first born, the fulfilment of the consoling promise of a Redeemer, and to have instilled such an idea into his mind. When, therefore, he saw his younger brother preferred, he was tempted to remove him from the possibility of enjoying his birth-right. You may remember to have heard our excellent preacher not long ago, taking occasion from this hypothesis, to caution mothers against nourishing the mischievous seeds

"In process of time," or at the end of days as the words may be literally translated, seem to signify stated worship at the end of six days.

of pride in their children; for thus early we have to lament the sad effects of Adam's disobedience in the depravity of his children, who were formed, not like Adam, originally, "in the image of God," but like him in his fallen state, with inclinations averse from good.

CATHERINE. What is meant by a sacrifice?

MRS. M. Sacrifice generally means, an offering made to the deity as an acknowledgment of his power, and a payment of that homage which is due to Him. Eucharistical sacrifices, or thanksgivings, were offered in Paradise; those which are called expiatory, were not instituted till Adam had transgressed the law of his Creator, and had learned, that without an atonement he could not be pardoned. That this sentiment has generally prevailed we discover in the fact, that sacrifices have been found amongst the religious rites of all nations before their conversion to christianity. We have no direct account of the origin of this mode of worship, but we hesitate not to pronounce it of divine authority, because Adam was taught immediately by his Creator; and without a command, it is highly probable he would not have thought of destroying the animals committed to his care, nor would he have imagined, that an offering, apparently so cruel, could be acceptable to a Being, whose benevolence was impressed on all around him.

The translation of Enoch, in the order of events, next arrests our attention. He was the descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam, who was given to Eve to console her for the loss of Abel, and whose family continued a long time in the practice of pure religion. This pious man, pious in the midst of universal corruption, was translated to heaven in the 365th year of his age (B. C. 3017),

without suffering the pain of dying. This remarkable event would intimate, to a people destitute as yet of a written revelation, and guided only by the partial light of tradition, that both the soul and bodies of the virtuous would find a glorious reward.

The life of man at this time was protracted to a great length. Methuselah, the oldest of whom we have any account, and who died a little before the flood, lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. (B. C. 2349.) The earth then would be rapidly peopled, and wickedness appears to have arrived at its utmost degree about this time; for, in the year of the world 1656, all mankind were swept away by a flood, "because the earth was filled with violence, and the imagination of man's heart was only evil continually." From this most awful judgment, one righteous man with his family were preserved. Noah, the great grandson of Enoch, was commanded by God to build an ark, or vessel, and to go into it with his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, and their wives; and to take with them also cattle and fowls, and creeping things of every description, that they might be kept alive. Of clean birds and beasts, or such as might be used in sacri- * fice, seven pair, and two of such as were inadmissible, or unclean. The great length of time required to construct a vessel of such strength and dimensions, as should contain so many living creatures and resist a deluge of waters, afforded an opportunity to the sentenced race to return to their long-suffering sovereign, had they been so inclined.

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CHARLES. How long was Noah employed in building the Ark?

MRS. M, Moses has not told us, nor has he left sufficient

data to enable us to calculate with certainty. Subsequent writers have therefore not agreed on this point. Some say an hundred years. Others think, even a longer period. . While the Ark was preparing, he warned his cotemporaries of the impending calamity, but no penitence appeared to avert the divine wrath, and “in the sixth hundredth year of Noah's age, in the second month and the seventeenth day of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and it rained forty days, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered, and al flesh died that moved upon the earth." "After the end of an hundred and fifty days," to continue the words of the sacred historian, for I can find none more descriptive; "the waters were abated." And in the seventh month on the seventeenth day of the month, the Ark, (which had floated above a whole year on the raging element in safety, throughout this terrible deluge) rested on the mountains of Ararat; and in the second month of the six hundredth and first year of Noah's age, the earth was dried, so that he brought his family forth. (B. C. 2388).

CHARLES. In what part of the world are these memorable mountains situated?

CATHERINE. Ararat is a mountain of Armenia, in Asia, a part of a chain called Caucasus.

MRS. M. The country is high; it is said to have been at that time very fertile; and therefore most suitable for the first habitation of man after the flood. The period of time from the creation to the flood embraces sixteen hundred and fifty-six years; and is called by chronologists the first age of the world.

CHARLES. Were the years of the Antediluvians like

ours, containing each three hundred and sixty-five days? Perhaps they were months; only think-Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. What a prodigious length of time!

MRS. M. They were literally years. The numbers recorded by Moses can, on no other hypothesis, be reconciled with his history. The age even of the oldest man reduced to months, would not equal the period allotted to many in our own day: and that of others, would dwindle into comparative childhood.

CHARLES. Was the salubrity of the climate the cause of their longevity?

MRS. M. The earth may have been more healthful before the flood, than it has been since. But the principal reason that we can discover for the amazing length of man's life, seems to be, that having no written language, a greater number of cotemporary witnesses might hand down the history of the creation and subsequent events.

Methuselah having lived with Adam 243 years, and with Shem, the son of Noah, 97; and again, Shem living till the days of Abraham, the history might be carried on with certainty and precision. Still the account of the first ages does not rest solely on the memory or veracity of the Antediluvian patriarchs. This historian, as you will find, by and bye, was favoured with an intimate communication with the Creator, by whom he was inspired, and who alone could reveal the history of the creation and the arrangement of matter; events which were anterior to the existence of any human being.

The first act which Noah performed after he descended from the Ark, was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice. Nothing surely could have been more natural or becoming