that, if there be, He is not a designing, a foreseeing, a providing, an all-wise, an all-powerful, and an all-holy Intelligence. Never can she tell you that He has not revealed Himself in words that breathe and burn with immortality, as well as in works which, with less, and yet with real eloquence, bid you to her feet for their truthful interpretation. She may speak, indeed, of a few seeming disagreements between these different productions of the same glorious Author; but of none which a sounder acquaintance than we have at present with both will not enable us to reconcile. Even as it is she tells us of many striking correspondences which furnish, if not proofs, at least presumptions, that two such closely agreeing and resembling records must have a common origin. But it is in answering objections that this argument from analogy is most convincing; for when the enemies of our faith assert that God cannot act in a particular way, we can appeal to His works in nature or in providence, to show not only that He can, but that He does so act. We believe that she tells us of hieroglyphic prophecies of the first man, in the various organisms which preceded him on earth, and argue that these predictions have been supplemented by prophecies which, in a different way, foretold of the second. She tells us of a system already begun; and we contend that the same system is now in progress to completion. Revelation has sketched, as we believe, a comprehensive picture, but has left us to discover that Nature has added, at His bidding, certain touches and details, which only magnify our astonishment at the grandeur of the great conception. She tells us of preparations begun, ere yet this lovely globe had one human inhabitant, for the accomplishment of a plan affecting all human generations. We even believe, that if her utterances, at such an immeasurable distance, could be audible, we should find, that issuing from the very depths of eternity, they echoed across the silent ages of all the then unborn, to tell us, though indirectly, of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Her intimations of this might, indeed, be obscure, and such as only those who took them in connection with other truths could interpret; but such intimations, we are verily persuaded, there would be; and could we fully comprehend them, they would be found to accord exactly with the statements of that Volume which assures us, that out of the ruins of a world, cleansed from its pollutions with a lustration of fire, there shall arise, in all its beauty and in all its glory, that regenerated earth, to which all previous things and beings had a reference, and which its everlasting Author, in the sovereign decrees of His own unchanging will, had ordained, from eternity, to be part of the final consummation. But, be this as it may, we believe that Scripture, nature, and history, when taken together, constitute a trinity of witnesses to truths which we have learned in our infancy, and pondered over in maturer years-which have cheered us in our hours of sorrow, and gladdened us at the prospect of death itself. Of these truths, those which relate to the earlier periods of the history of man now engage our attention. We left him in a state as yet of innocence and joy: no cloud had hitherto passed over his morning happiness. God, we are told expressly, "is light, and in Him is no darkness at all:" and man was then enjoying the light and blessing of His presence; therefore it was day. The Sun of Righteousness was above the human horizon; and what the natural sun is to the material world, the spiritual Sun is to the moral-a hallowed and a heavenly illumination, enlightening all the faculties of the understanding, and gladdening and fertilizing all the affections of the heart. The warmth of true devotion was glowing in the sentiment of worship within that grateful creature, whose being was happiness, and whose language was praise. He answered the end of his creation-recognised God in every thing, and every thing in God-and saw and felt, that while all things else "From earth's great altar sent up silent praise To the Creator," it was for him, and him alone, to make the new-born world musical with articulate speech, and sing the first hymn that ever ascended from earth to heaven. Sublime enjoyment! We pause upon its contemplation, for we feel that what once was, may be again, and believe that the renewal will be greater and grander than even the creation. It is well to ponder over all that we have lost, and take shame to a nature that could forfeit this for the visionary good that sin had promised to disobedience; while it is also well to animate our hearts with those inspiring hopes of even better things to come, which are based, not on the weakness of creatureship, but on the strength of almightiness. Yes, it was day. The green world was rejoicing in the richness of a vegetation that owed its fertility to that material orb which makes the woods rejoice, and the valleys to laugh with joy. But there was a spiritual luminary, that was far more gladdening; and it was shining in cloudless glory on the lord of this wide inheritance. He had come into being, it would now appear, as the fulfilment of types of outward form, pointing him out to those who could understand them as the great end to which they were leading. But intelligent beings who could read them, we are taught to believe, existed in the angels who kept their first estate; and we conclude that they who celebrated the nativity of the Second Man, by singing "glory to God in the highest," had also sung glory to God, as the type of this woman-born Redeemer-that is, the first man-came forth to glorify, in his make and nature, the heavenly Architect of a new creation. "The morning stars," on that occasion, sang together, and the "sons of God shouted for joy." There was a Such is the first chapter of our biography. It was a chapter of light. But we all know that another phase of the story was soon to be exhibited. This shall be noticed in the chapter that is to follow. melancholy change, and its cause, its consequences, and the remedy shall be alluded to hereafter. For the present, it is enough to say, that we have no means of ascertaining, or even conjecturing, how long this happy state of things continued; and only know that it was followed by a darkness which has lasted to this hour |