and the beasts and the birds were consumed." (JEREMIAH Xii. 4.) The social bond was then broken, and man became the terror of the brute creation.

What was the original intention of the Creator in respect to man and the brute creation, as far as concerns some of their particular uses, it is impossible to say. But, when we consider the great service which some of them afford to man, both in respect to food and assistance, even in the fallen state of the world; and then estimate the uses to which others, with their extraordinary strength, agility, and sagacity, might be applied in a state of absolute subjection, the effect must have been prodigious. We may gain some assistance in this contemplation, by considering what they are in the hands of the Almighty Creator, when he pleases to make use of them as the instruments of his pleasure, or of his

wrath. Consider, for a moment, the animals made to pass in review before Adam in Paradise those brought by pairs and by sevens to Noah at the ark-the "insect armies" used as

the scourges of Pharaoh and the Egyptiansthe quails brought to the Israelites in the wilderness as food, or the fiery serpents sent to sting them-the ravens made the purveyors of food to Elijah-the lion which killed the disobedient prophet-the lions which crouched before the holy prophet Daniel-and the wild beasts in the wilderness, which harmed not the Saviour in the days of his temptation:—when we reflect upon these cases, well may we exclaim, “O Lord, what service have we lost by our rebellion against THEE!" But to return to our history.

In the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, mention is made of Abel having a flock of sheep, and of his offering the firstlings of it to

the Lord. The offering was a sacrifice, appointed, probably, by God, at the time of the fall of Adam; and the promise of the seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head, as a type of that Lamb of God, which was in due time to appear and be sacrificed for us, to take

way the sin of the world. The flock, probably, was kept by Abel for the milk, as, "Who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?" (1 Cor. ix. 7.) For the eating of flesh, it seems, was not yet permitted, as the food still assigned to man after the fall, was "the herb of the field." (GEN. iii. 18.) Whether man had gone beyond this permission, and had eaten flesh before the flood, we are not informed.

II. After the flood, however, we find, that, on Noah's coming out of the ark, with all the creatures, he "builded an altar unto the Lord," and "offered burnt offerings upon the

altar." (GEN. viii. 20.) "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat." (GEN. ix. 1-4.)

Man, who was created originally as the Lord of the creation, to have dominion over it,' which implies rule, for the general good, on his fall became the tyrant over his subject animals, and bears sway, not for the general good, but according to his own self-will, and for what he conceives to be his own self-interest, and looks

upon them with indifference or contempt, except so far as they seem to administer to his interest and his pleasure. But shall man look with indifference or contempt upon those things which have been made by the Allmighty and All-wise Creator of all? The same God who made man, hath made, also, "all sheep and oxen; yea, and the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea." (PSALM viii. 7, 8.) And, when man had "corrupted his way before God," and He had determined, on that account, not only to destroy man from the face of the earth, but every living thing also, "Noah found grace in his eyes;" and so, also, did "every living thing of all flesh:" (GEN. vii. 8, 19.) an ark was prepared for man and every living thing; food was procured for all; and, on the subsiding of the waters, and the release of all from out of the