which the Lord Jesus Christ has purchased for all that love him, and by which you are enabled to call him Father.

EXPOSITION VII.

GENESIS ii. 18-25.

18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

Behold, in these verses, Adam exercising for the first time that "dominion" which God had given him over the beast of the field, and over the fowl of the air; all are brought to him, and all are named by him, no doubt, appropriately to their different habits or appearances.

It was

like a general review of subjects by their monarch; and as each received the name which Adam gave, no doubt each felt and acknowledged the superiority of him before whom he passed. So great was this superiority, that in all the world of creatures, God himself pronounced that "there was not found an help meet for" Adam. How mercifully did the Almighty consider man's necessities and comforts! "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." No, even in paradise, it was not good to be alone. Man is formed for the society of his fellow-men, and can neither serve God acceptably, nor live happily without it. We are all thus created dependant upon each other, and should remember that among the first duties of life, and. especially the first claims of a Christian family, will be found an urgent call upon each individual member, to endeavour to minister to the comfort and happiness of all. "It is not good that the man should be alone;" but it is better to dwell even alone, than amidst ungoverned tempers, or unkind language, or selfish feelings, or irritating, or provoking, or sullen dispositions. Take care, then, that you each, in your place, bear this continually in mind. A whole family may be rendered uncomfortable, when this is neglected

or forgotten, even by a single member, and though that member be a child or a servant. Each has need of each, and all must co-operate watchfully, perseveringly, prayerfully, before the will of the Lord can be fulfilled, even in a Christian household, and we be found helps meet for each other. In short, nothing but the love of Christ can make us so. Let that really be shed abroad in our hearts, and although there must ever be momentary interruptions, while we carry about with us "a body of sin and death," they will be but momentary; and, like the cloud which passes across the sun, they will leave the Christian's path as bright and cheerful as they found it.

Recollect, then, that domestic love can alone render us "helps meet for each other;" but that domestic love can never fail and never lessen, only when it is the genuine fruit and offspring of spiritual love, of love to God, because he first loved us, and love to all around us, as created by the same Maker, redeemed by the same Saviour, and as, in Christian charity, we would fain desire to hope, preparing by the same Holy Spirit, for the same blessed eternity.

21. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the

man.

23. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

We have here a more minute and particular description of the formation of the first woman : it was no doubt revealed to Adam, probably that he might the more entirely love, and the more fondly attach himself to, one who was so literally "bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh:" while our Lord in after times quotes the very words which we have just read, that a "man should leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife," in proof of the sacredness of the marriage tie, and the indissoluble nature of that holy engagement. Our Church has well said of marriage, that it" is an honourable estate, instituted of God, in the time of man's innocency:" the only institution, except the Sabbath, which had its origin before sin had entered into the world. Surely, then, it should neither be thoughtlessly entered upon, nor lightly esteemed: it is God's own in

stitution can we, then, doubt that it should be a religious ordinance, and that God's blessing and presence should be earnestly and continually sought for in all that regards it?

Such an union ought indeed to be a close, a holy, a happy union, since our Lord did not hesitate to compare it to his own blessed and mysterious union with the Church, his holy and happy spouse. Well, therefore, does our marriage service teach us to pray, that men may love their wives, "as Christ did love his spouse the Church, who gave himself for it, loving and cherishing it even as his own flesh," and that the woman

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may be loving and amiable, faithful and obedient to her husband." Where these prayers are heard, the married life is comparatively a life of happiness, even in a world of sorrow; and of all the institutions of God, it is that, for which the Christian pilgrim daily and hourly feels the most grateful to his heavenly Father, as one of the sweetest alleviations of the toils and troubles of his path, as shedding a beam of peaceful light across the darkest days of his pilgrimage, and rendering brighter, and happier, and more serene, even the calmest and the best.