for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12. And the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13. And the name of the second river is Gihon : the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel : that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

We have before had a minute account of the formation and origin of man. We have in these verses a distinct description of his first residence, the garden of Eden. In this favoured spot, blessed, we have no doubt, with fertility and beauty, above every other portion, even of that perfect world of which it formed a part, God placed the man "to dress it and to keep it." Man, therefore, even in a state of innocency, was not an idle being. Before the earth was cursed for man's sake; before it became actually needful

for him to sow, and to till, and to cultivate; before the word had gone forth, "Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," it was God's will, and, no doubt, man's happiness, that he should be employed. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," were the words of our divine and perfect Saviour. Nothing is idle throughout creation. The listless, inactive, indolent man, and especially the indolent Christian, is an anomaly in God's world. Bless the Almighty, therefore, that you have an employment; and do not imagine, as some are apt to do, that you could serve God better if you had no earthly business to attend to; for be assured that were it so, God would not thus have found occupation even for the perfect Adam. No, be satisfied that you may love, and serve, and honour God, as effectually, and often more effectually, while your hands are engaged in the daily duties of life, than if your whole time were at your own disposal; and, like the anchorites of old, devoted entirely to solitude and prayer. "Man's idle time," says the proverb, " is the devil's working time," and never is the Christian in greater danger, never does he more need the continual aid of God's preserving grace, than when he is placed in circumstances of indolence and ease.

C

I once had the happiness of enjoying the acquaintance, and I hope I may say the friendship, of an aged Christian, in the lower ranks of life,* who with great difficulty gained his daily bread by daily labour; and who, in answer to some observation upon the incessant toil to which his circumstances exposed him, replied, "I think it an unspeakable blessing to be continually employed." And he was right: what most men complain of as a hardship, he felt to be a privilege and a mercy. Few men knew their own

hearts better, and few men lived and died more as I should myself desire to live and die, than he did.

16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely

eat:

This was John Sharman, of Chelsea, (for many years servant to the late Wm. Wilberforce, Esq.,) a devoted follower of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and a most faithful member, from conviction, of the Established Church. It is a pleasure to me to mention his name, as I know it will be responded to by many among my late parishioners with the same feelings of grateful thanksgiving to God as are excited in my own mind, by the recollection of his humble and holy walk with God, his enlarged charity towards those still poorer than himself, his deep spirit of Christian love towards all, and his peaceful and happy death.

17. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Behold the single command to which our first parent was subjected; naturally, Adam could have no trials, no temptations; all that he beheld was his own; every thought of his heart, every wish of his mind, was anticipated and provided for. "Of every tree thou mayest" not only eat, but, "freely eat," were the words of his bounteous Maker. There could, then, be no test of Adam's gratitude, no proof of Adam's love, no evidence of his obedience: there would, we might almost say, have been a want even in paradise itself. Observe, then, how this was remedied; "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat." One tree, and one only, was excepted from the general grant: one tree, and one alone, could Adam look at with feelings of peculiar delight, with that delight which every grateful heart understands, when it endeavours to repay, by however slight a service, or however small an act of self-denial, the favours of a benefactor. We cannot doubt, that so long as Adam obeyed the single command with which his God intrusted him, there

was no tree in all that fair and beauteous garden so beautiful and fair as "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;" no tree which he beheld with so delightful, and so encouraging a feeling, with so continually renewed an assurance that he was still one with God, and God with him; for while that tree remained untouched, the only injunction of his Divine Maker remained unbroken. Think not, then, that this was merely a gratuitous temptation, a snare placed in the path of Adam to entrap his steps; it was doubtless as merciful a portion of God's wondrous plan as any other object in creation. If it became Adam's ruin, if it brought death into the world, and all our woe, this was not the necessary consequence of such a tree, or of such a command, but of Satan's subtilty, and of man's forgetfulness of God. Say not, when you are tempted, "I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." Every temptation, when resisted effectually by God's grace sought for by diligent prayer, becomes a positive blessing, and tends to unite you more closely to God, and to assure you more unquestionably, of the reality of that blessed relationship