their friends happy. In such circumstances, they have the advantage greatly on their side, even supposing that both had cultivated the social and domestic affections with the same fervor, which, however, can not be the case. The passion for mere wealth and show, is a disorganizing and disuniting principle in its very essence; and to suppose that the kindly and humane affections as readily unite themselves with its selfish nature, as with those of a more elevated kind, is prepos terous. Whom do we see, with the placid brow and the gentle smile, laying aside the tinsel trappings with which affection may have decked her in the hour of prosperity, and betaking herself to the humble employments which a change of circumstances requires; but her who, by force of a judicious education, or by natural strength and enlargement of mind, has been led to perceive and appreciate the true relations of things; that there is a higher and a better good, than any the externals of life can furnish; that mind is superior to matter, and of the same value, wherever placed; and that sympathy and affection are the very jewels of life, the pure and inborn gems that give light even in darkness?

Let not then the timid and wavering mother be misled by a too shortsighted view of things, into a belief that she consults the best welfare of her daughters, by restricting their education to a low standard. We trust the time is coming, is come, when those who act from no higher

motive than mere expediency, will see the advantage of cultivating all the highest powers of the mind, and warmest affections of the heart. They will see that the commercial revolutions to which our country is subject, will from time to time, come to lay waste the fair fields of prosperity, and that then, she who has been best prepared by education, will be most likely to preserve her own respectability, and the happiness of those around her. And it is to be hoped that the sad experience of the past, will open so many eyes to the value of this better wealth, that in the golden days of prosperity, superior qualities shall retain the ascendency and the estimation they deserve; that airs shall not again take precedence of graces, flippancy of wit, rudeness of refinement, inanity of intelligence, nor apathy and indifference of warm and generous feelings. We even venture to hope that improvement may be carried to such an extent, that the pleasure and benefit to be derived from the exercise of elegant accomplishments and useful employments, shall be thought fully equal, and even superior to that obtained from gossiping, scandal, and worsted work.

Then will manners become what they should ever be, the beautiful index and exposition of character, and will flow from it so naturally, and with so little study, that we may confidently expect our stores of waste paper to be very considerably increased by superfluous pages, here and there, from even our best digested systems of etiquette.

WHEN the Lord had created man, he prepared for him "a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had made." It would seem from this, and the parallel passages, that the terms Eden and garden are not of precisely the same import. Eden appears to have been the name of a country, within the limits of which the garden was situated. The exact location either of the garden or country, it is impossible now to ascertain. We only know that it was 66 eastward" from Palestine or Arabia, where Moses was when he wrote this history, and that it was in the neighborhood of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The garden, we are told, contained

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ry tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life, also, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

We have further mention of "the tree of life," in the following chapter. It was lest fallen, doomed man should "put forth his hand, and partake of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever," that he was "sent forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." "So the Lord drave out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

Before attempting an explanation of this difficult portion of Scripture, it will be necessary to consider some of the various expositions which commentators have given of it.

The first is that which regards the narrative, in the first three chapters of Genesis, as a mythus, an allegory, an interesting and instructive fable. The whole account of man's creation and apostasy, it is said, is not veritable history, but allegory, and

is to be interpreted accordingly. This view of the matter we reject ; and for the following reasons:

1. The language here used, is not that of poetry and fiction, but of sober, historical prose. Here are no startling figures, and bold personifications; none of the imagery and drapery which belong to oriental verse; but all has the appearance of simple, historical narrative and truth. Judging from the style, merely, if the first three chapters of Genesis are not history, then is there no history in the Bible. But

2. The first three chapters of Genesis are to be regarded as history, because in their proper, historical sense, they furnish a rational account, and the only rational account, of many known and important facts. Among the facts here referred to, are the creation of the world; the origin of the human race; the insti tutions of marriage, and of the Sabbath; the division of time into weeks; the introduction of sin and misery into the world; the natural sterility of the earth, and the consequent necessity of labor; the subjection of the woman to her husband; the sorrows of child-bearing; the natural antipathy of the human race to the serpent, &c. Here is a long train of acknowledged facts, (to which several others, we presume, might be added,) all which are satisfactorily accounted for, if we admit the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis. But if we reject this truth, and substitute an allegorical sense, no rational account of them, and indeed no account whatever, can possibly be given.

3. That the first three chapters of Genesis are to be interpreted as history, is certain from the allusions to them in other parts of Scripture. Our Savior refers to one of these chapters, and quotes expressly from

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it, in his discourse with the Pharisees, on the subject of divorce. "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, for this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh." The apostle Paul refers to facts recorded in these chapters, in his repeated contrasts between Adam and Christ, and in numerous other passages. man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man ;" referring to the circumstances of her creation. "Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man." 1 Cor. xi, 8, 9. "I fear lest, by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtilty, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." What are we to make of this passage, if it is not literally true that the serpent did beguile Eve, through his subtilty? Again; "I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence; for Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression." If these allusions of the apostle are correct, or his reasonings just, then the facts to which he refers, and from which he reasons, actually took place, as recorded in the first chapters of Genesis.

tation of the first chapters of Genesis, we leave them utterly without foundation.

For these reasons, we reject the mythical, allegorical interpretation of these chapters, and insist that they must be received in the literal, historical sense. The first human pair were literally brought into existence, as here described; and were placed in a literal garden in Eden; in which were literal trees; as the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And here our first parents were literally seduced, through the subtilty of the serpent, and fell into sin; after which they were severally doomed, as the narrative relates, and driven out from the garden of Eden, to subdue and cultivate the rugged earth. These and other things narrated in the first chapters of Genesis, are plain historical facts, and as such, are to be received, on the authority of the infallible word of God.

But if there was a literal tree of life in the midst of the garden, what was it there for? What was the design, object, import, and use of this remarkable tree?

Some have supposed that the tree of life was the token of the first covenant-the covenant of works. It has been said, that "when God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death." In other words, God proposed to man, if he would continue perfectly obedient, that he would give him eternal life; but if he fail

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die. The man consented to the proposal, and thus a proper cove nant was formed. The token of this covenant was the tree of life, which, standing in the midst of the garden, was a pledge and an assurance to man, of that endless life, which, on condition of obedience, God had promised.

In reference to this theory, we remark, in the first place, that we have never yet been able to discover any evidence in the Scriptures, of a proper covenant transaction between God and Adam, previous to the fall. God created our first parents rational, intelligent beings free moral agents-the proper subjects of law and government. As such, he placed them at once under law-a dispensation which imported that if they obeyed, they should be rewarded; if they disobeyed, they should be punished. The language of God to Adam, on this occasion, was that, not of proposal, of condition, of covenant, but of imperative law.

"The Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die." Certainly, this is the language of strict law; and except, as law is sometimes loosely called covenant in the Scriptures, there was no covenant with Adam, before he fell. Manifestly, there was no literal, proper covenant. But if there was no proper covenant made with Adam in the garden, then the tree of life could not have been the token of such a covenant; and the theory above stated, as to the object and import of this tree, is without foundation.

There is another objection to the theory in question. Man needed no token, to assure him that God would reward the obedient, more than the angels now need such a token in heaven. The proper import of law is, obey and live; transgress and die.* And this was the

*We do not suppose, indeed, that the obedient merit a reward at the hands of God, in the same sense that the disobedient merit punishment. Still, they are proper subjects of reward. It is suitable that they should be rewarded. They have the merit of congruity, (if not con

very dispensation under which Adam was placed-a dispensation of pure law, to confirm which no public pledge or token was necessary.

Some have thought there was a connexion between the tree of life, and the trial, the probation, on which our first parents were placed. If they persevered in holiness to the end of their trial, they were to be confirmed in holiness; in assurance of which they should then be permitted to eat of the tree of life. Its fruit should be to them a pledge, a token, that their probation was happily ac complished, and that an unchang ing state of holiness and happiness would now be their portion.

We have no doubt that our first parents were on trial before the fall, and that, had they persevered in holiness for a limited time, they would have been, like the angels, confirmed in a state of holiness and happiness forever. But we much doubt whether the object of the tree of life is truly stated in the above theory. This theory supposes, that the fruit of the tree of life might not be eaten, until the probation of our first parents was ended; whereas it is plain, from the narration, that it might be eaten at any time. There was but one prohibited tree in the garden; and that was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Of every other tree (and consequently of the tree of life) it is expressly said that our first parents might freely eat. How, then, can it be made to appear that they might not eat of the tree of life, until their trial was accomplished, and their confirmed state of holiness and happiness commenced?

But if neither of the above theories as to the import and design of the tree of life is to be admitted, what supposition shall we form in regard to the subject? What was

dignity,) on the ground of which the goodness of God has always rewarded them, and always will.

the object of the tree of life? For what was this remarkable tree planted in the midst of the garden?

Before replying to these questions, let it be premised, that temporal death-the dissolution of the connexion between soul and bodyis to be regarded as one of the bitter consequences of the apostasy. It is so represented in the Scriptures. By man came death." "In Adam all die." 66 By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin." (1 Cor. xv, 21; Rom. v, 12.) It is not at all likely that man would ever have been

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called to endure the pains of temporal death, if he had not sinned. He might not, in that case, have lived in this world always, but some easier exit out of it would have been provided for him, than that to which he is now subjected. He might have been translated, as Enoch and Elijah were. At any rate, he would not have been doomed to pass through the iron gate of death.

But if man in his innocence was not to die, then some provision must have been made for counteracting and removing the sources of disease and decay within him-the ordinary causes of death. As he was not to lead a life of indolence, but one of cheer ful, healthful industry, being commanded to "dress the garden and to keep it;" he was subject, as man now is, to casualties and injuries. As he was on trial, too, he must have been placed in circum stances fitted to try him; to try his faith, his fortitude, his submission, his patience, his self-denial. He was moreover subject, inherently and naturally, to hunger, thirst, lassitude, weariness, disease, de cay. And these causes must ultimately have worn him out and resulted in death, unless some method had been devised to counteract their influence, and repair those wastes in the physical constitution which they were calculated to make.

And here, we think, we have the precise object and use of the tree of life. It was planted in the midst of the garden-in a situation easy of access from every part of itthat it might be a perfect and universal restorative; that it might heal all maladies, overcome all the causes of disease and decay, and preserve innocent and happy man in perpetual health, strength, and maturity, till his trial should be ended, and he should be removed to his final and glorified state in heaven.

That this was the design and use of the tree in question is evident, first, from its name. It was called the tree of life; thus indicating that it was intended to preserve and perpetuate life, and to deliver from death.

The same is still more evident, secondly, from what was said of this tree subsequent to the apostasy. Of the curse pronounced upon fallen man, temporal death constituted a part. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Of the doom here denounced, there was to be there has been, no remission. With the exception of Enoch and Elijah, the dread decree has been rigidly executed, and will be, upon all the generations of men. But the tree of life is upon the earth, and how is man ever to die, if he may have access to this verdant tree? If he may pluck and apply its healing leaves, and partake of its life-giving, health-restoring fruit; how is the inexorable curse of temporal dissolution ever to be executed? It can not be. Man must be shut out from the tree of life, or he can never return to dust. He must be rigidly kept from it, or he will live forever. Accordingly, we find him instantly driven out from the garden of Eden; and driven out for this express and