which seconded the serpent's words a craving appetite -a longing to taste-and all the more because to taste was forbidden her.- When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat.

This, brethren, is the Bible account "of man's first disobedience," of how sin struck root in our race; and it is most instructive. We see, by Eve's example, the gradual stealthy progress by which, for the most part, men are made sinners. First, there is the listening to the serpent's voice-Yea hath God said so and so? is it really so very wrong? does God care about such a mere trifle ? Then there is the doubt whether He will punish-ye shall not surely die—“God will never visit me for following the nature He has Himself implanted in me." Thus it is that we deceive ourselves; thus we grow bold to walk in forbidden paths, and to venture on practices, against which God has set the barrier of His holy law-thou shalt not do them.

We will now look at the consequences of this selfdeceit. Lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. In the case of our first parents, there was, on the completion of their sin, an immediate alteration in their conditionTheir eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked; the sense of shame-guilty shame-now, for the first time, made itself felt. And this is wonderfully true still. The innocent feel no shame: but, with the loss of innocence, comes an opening of the eyes. Only now, in

early childhood, do we find that happy ignorance to which all things are pure; only then is there an approach to that old state, when man as yet was naked, and not ashamed. Shame comes with a consciousness of guilt, at once a witness, and an accuser, charging us before God with having eaten of the tree, whereof He commanded us that we should not eat.

And note another thing-Adam and Eve felt that they were naked; they sought to cover their nakedness; to conceal their fault-to keep it from the knowledge of God-but in vain. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves, from the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the Garden. What an awful fact in the history of our fallen nature is here revealed! With sin-with the sense of guilt-comes a shrinking from God-a trying to escape out of His sight-a hiding of ourselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. This has been man's instinct ever since the Fall.-Just as a wild beast runs into a thicket at the sight of a human being, so we, God's highest creatures, now that sin has debased us, instead of delighting to draw near our Maker, are found running away from Him, shaking with fear at the sound of His voice, and seeking, in many vain and foolish ways, to get beyond His reach.

I say it is a sad fact, and a great witness to the truth of this part of the Bible, that man, in his natural state, is afraid of God, and would, if it were possible, live without God. But it is not possible-Whither shall I go from Thy spirit, or whither shall I go from Thy presence?

If I climb up into heaven Thou art there, if I go down into hell Thou art there also. If I say peradventure the darkness shall cover me, then shall my night be turned into day. No there is no escape out of God's sight, or out of God's hand-by no effort of ours can we long remain undetected. Pleasure, dissipation-the assumption of bold defiance, a pretending not to care-we try them all in turn, but all are unavailing.-There is a voice which finds its way through all obstacles-The voice of the Lord Godthe voice which called to Adam, Where art thou?-that voice pursues us; we cannot drown it, nor get out of its range -it will make itself heard-trembling and astonished we own its power: we say, O Lord, Thou hast searched me out and known me. Thou knowest all things. My faults are not hid from Thee.

The next thing to notice in this third chapter, is the punishment inflicted on Adam and Eve, and on us their offspring. Unto the woman God said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. That was the sentence passed on Eve, verified ever since in all her daughtersthe great pain and peril of childbirth, the constant care and labour that the bringing up of a family entails; the subjection of her will to the law of her husband. That was the woman's part in the penalty—while on Adam this burden was laid-Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring

forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field-in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground-for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Three things you will observe in this sentence; first, the ground is cursed for Adam's sin; secondly, Adam and all his descendants are doomed to hard labour-to eat their bread in the sweat of their brow; and, thirdly, men shall return to his earth, all his high thoughts, all his noble aims cut short by the words, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return!

And, brethren, has not this sentence, too, been carried out? Speaking, as I do, to men who toil for their daily bread, who, from early boyhood to old age, go forth to labour in the fields, what better witnesses can I have to confirm what Holy Scripture tells us of the consequences of the Fall? Is it not quite true that the ground is cursed for Adam's sake? Will it bear any fruit without careful tillage? And can that tillage-that ploughing, weeding, cleaning, reaping, be ever anything but a work of toil? Can we eat our bread except by the sweat of our brow? True, that many seem exempt from manual labour; but labour, of one kind or the other, there surely is for us all ;-scarcely, in any circumstances, can we find one who does not have, in some way-by the sweat of his brow-by the labour of mind, if not of body, to provide for the support of his life.

And then note another thing. All, poor and rich alike, share the doom of death. Take a man whose outward circumstances are most easy-who has wealth and station, and all the good things of life, yet can he

not reckon on the continuance of his enjoyments: dust he is, and to dust he must return; but a few short years, and he must follow the generation of his fathers: by no art or effort can he keep off what is appointed for him and all his fellows; like the poorest and most miserable, he must know decay, and sickness, and death.

And what do I gather from this? what is the lesson for us to learn from these undoubted facts in our condition? Why, that this world is not our rest; that here we have no abiding city: that our happiness-if it is to last-if it is to be sure, must be built upon God. God in mercy has taken away the gloss and bloom which there was, before the Fall, upon this outward world, on purpose that He might raise our affections to things above. He has made us subject to labour, disease, and death. He has so shut out the possibility of our arriving at any high degree of happiness or knowledge here, by the gradual weakening of our faculties as we grow old, as to compel us to seek for it elsewhere-to seek for it in another world, where there shall be nothing to prevent the full attainment of it: where the former things shall have quite passed away-where there shall be no more curse, no more toil, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more death.

Then if this be so, good arises out of what appears a most hopeless evil. True, that we are driven out here. from the Garden of Eden, and by no power can we win back our way to that happy seat while we are on earth. The flaming sword turns every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. We cannot have our thirst for knowledge satisfied—we cannot shake off the necessity to labour—