THE

ORIGIN OF MAN.

SATAN, the most proud and haughty of the archangels of heaven, refusing at length his homage before the Eternal Throne, drew on himself and his misguided host of erring spirits, the indignation of the Omnipotent, whose word is law, and whose will is fate. God, justly incensed at their daring and ungrateful rebellion against his immutable authority, resolved that their chastisement should be an eternal banishment from that glorious hemisphere, whose sanctity their unholy presence polluted; and, precipitating them from that Paradise they were unworthy to enjoy, he bid them bewail in Chaos and Despair, their endless misery and unparalleled guilt. Justice was thus appeased, but even sin and ingratitude thus atrocious, could not stifle the pleadings of that Godlike mercy which even condescended to pity and ameliorate the fate of that fallen band which had sacrilegiously defied the power of Omnipotence itself. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." Darkness and Chaos disappeared before the Almighty command, and vacuum became gradually replete with the

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essence of life and mortality; Beings co-eval and coeternal with God, whose only occupation in immensity of space, had hitherto been to enjoy the felicities of the regions of the blest, and sing their sacred Hallelujahs before the Throne of Light, now looked down with wonder and astonishment on the creation of a new world, and from the heights of Eternity watched with intensity of interest, the birth of Time! This universe, then, sprung to view, clothed in beauty and glowing in verdure, but still inferior. Alas! how inferior to the glorious regions Sin had for ever forfeited! Even thus, however, it was too fair and lovely for the beings whose shelter it was destined to become, and it remained for Sin itself, with all its overwhelming flood of pride and passions, to render it a Hell, which should fit it as a place of torture and punishment for traitors to their God, and betrayers of their benefactor.

It was now that animal life first awoke into existence: and in this new shape were the fallen band imprisoned, and condemned to suffer all that the spirit of evil within their own perverted breasts could inflict. They had, however, gradations in their wickedness; and these gradations, dividing them into two classes, each were, by their just Judge, allotted a separate sphere of action and endurance. Inflated pride, and criminal ambition, had led Satan, and the ringleaders of his wild rebellion, to defy the will of the Most High, and refuse to acknowledge a power superior to themselves. These, then, the original movers of sin, were the most guilty, and as such formed the first class; and as they had proved them

selves unworthy of a high sphere, even when madly seeking to attain a higher, so did their just punishment degrade them to the lowest sphere of animal existence, and, as venomous reptiles or noxious wild beasts, presents them an awful picture of the vengeance of an outraged and offended God! The second class was formed of those whom weakness, and the evil counsels of others, rather than the inherent depravity of their own nature, had led to err; though, had the germ of sin and ingratitude not originally existed within them, the hand of the tempter had not succeeded in raising a stem whose shade could thus have darkened their future prospects for ever. These last were allotted (as an additional chastisement) power and dominion over the former, under the name of Man; but such was the universal sway of pride over that whole fallen host, that, in the beginning, two only of all its countless multitudes were found worthy of even this mitigated punishment, and admitted to superiority of form over the others. For these two a garden had been created, rich in beauty, and luxuriant in vegetation— the Eden of this world, though distant as time is to eternity from the Eden they had lost. Weakness, rather than wickedness, continued their distinguishing characteristic, though pride and disobedience still mingled with their better qualities; and, like noxious weeds in a verdant bed of flowers, choked up the tender buds of sweetest perfume and brightest beauty, but to taint the once pure atmosphere around with their own rank shade and influence. They had fallen from the angelic sphere to pay the penalty of crime; and they were consequently but B 2

condemned to a state of bitter trial and constant endurance. The laws of God, at incessant variance with the evil inclinations of their own hearts, were laid before them, and their infringement was to entail the loss of even that last fair resting-place which mercy had hitherto decreed for the abode of man. Passion warred with fear -humility with arrogance-vice with the last lingering shades of virtue-until man's own breast became the Hell that was meet punishment in the eye of vengeance itself, even for the sin of devils!

The tempter, writhing in all the agonies of mortified pride and wounded ambition, condemned to assume the form that best typified his envenomed malice, and placed him lowest in the scale of created beings, once more advocated guilt and whispered disobedience.Alas! the experience of the past was not a sufficient lesson for the future. The sinister voice of the serpent was listened to; the spirit of evil prevailed, and the earthly Eden was lost by disobedience, as the heavenly sphere had been forfeited by ingratitude. The last faint vestige of former glories faded and disappeared before the breath of sin, as the withering floweret closes its leaves and dies beneath the deadly shade of the poisonous Upas!

The second transgression was visited by its pre-ordained consequences; to struggle with his passions, and conquer his own weakness, was yet a task too great for Man; and as those passions and feelings were only inflicted on him as a creature suffering under divine wrath, and he was but endowed with the shape of Man, as the

meet reward of his previous guilt, he could not complain if an addition to that guilt brought upon him also an aggravated punishment. Banishment from Eden was not the only consequence of his error; the earth was cursed for the sin of fallen angels, and in sorrow was Man doomed to reap of the fruits all the days of his life ; he was now condemned to toil for his daily subsistence, and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. The lofty Archangel, whose sphere was ETERNITY, and attribute BEATITUDE, now lost, sunk, suffering, and degraded, felt too late that the recompense of iniquity is tears, “ And the wages of sin is death." The sentence of God on the expulsion of the rebellious archangels from heaven, had been eternal banishment, and the word of God is unchanging. To return was, therefore, rendered impossible; but their fate had still been softened and ameliorated as far as mercy dared temper justice, had their second transgression in Eden not proved them unworthy of forbearance, and doomed them to drink to the very dregs the bitter cup of affliction poured out by the hand of an offended Deity. The passions inflicted on them, as a curse, were yet controllable by the strong voice of reason, did not wilful impetuosity turn a deaf ear to her remonstrances; and as the aggravation of their fate was the free choice of these misguided beings, their consequent sufferings are no impeachment of the mercy of their justly incensed Judge. Death was now added to the measure of their calamities, and in that awful and mysterious disunion of the immaterial soul from the corporeal frame, well did they shuddering view and ac