Milton, apparently for the purpose of evading this moral difficulty, represents the serpent as incapable of laying the blame on the real perpetrator of the crime, but this rather increases the difficulty than removes it. Did the Omniscient require to be informed what were the real facts?

9. The condition of man in the primeval paradise is described as follows:-"The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree which is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden," &c. "And the Lord

God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

According to this portion of the narrative the life of man, if he had abstained from eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, would have been that of a cultivator of a well-watered garden, which brought forth all the necessaries of life in rich abundance, and abounded with trees pleasing to the eye. Such a life, however it may be suited to a condition of childlike innocence, is one which is ill fitted to develop the higher powers of man. This is proved by the condition of mankind in all those countries of the world where the necessaries of life can be obtained with little or no exertion. In regions apparently less favoured, which render toil and energetic effort necessary, we find the noblest forms of human character. Even if we assume that Adam was created with the higher faculties only in embryo, yet capable of development, the condition of things in which, according to the narrative, he was originally placed was one ill suited to develop them. In fact, it does not even imply that any provision was made for that purpose. This has induced some to propound the theory that that portion of the sentence which condemned Adam to a life of toil was a blessing

rather than a curse, and consequently that what has been designated the fall was an evolution in an upward rather than a degradation in a downward direction. It is, therefore, argued that this account of the change in the original condition of primeval man presents far more the appearance of parable or allegory than an historic narrative. Further, it is urged that the failure of the attempt to find the river which went out of Eden to water the garden, and "which from thence was parted and became four heads," notwithstanding the minuteness with which it is described, points to a similar conclusion.

I have thus endeavoured to set before the reader an impartial statement of the facts as we read them in the Book of Genesis, and of the references to them in the subsequent portions of the Bible, divested of all theories and conjectures respecting what they have been made to mean to make them square with various systems of systematic and popular theology. I have, therefore, taken the narrative simply as it stands, and as it must have been understood during long ages in the Church, in the absence of any authority in any canonical book assigning to it any other meaning than its natural one, it being, in fact, the only source of information which the Old Testament supplies. But inasmuch as the narrative, if it is received as a statement of actual occurrences, abounds with difficulties of no ordinary character, I have thought it right to set before the reader a brief summary of the reasons which have induced numerous eminent theologians to arrive at the conclusion that the account of the fall as given in the third chapter of Genesis is allegorical, and not intended to be a history of actual occurrences. Which of these views is the correct one the reader must

now judge for himself. It only remains for me to observe, whichever of them he adopts, that the various widespread popular theories respecting the condition in which man was

originally created, the nature of his subsequent fall, and the consequences which have resulted from it, must be first read into the narrative before they can be found therein, and that it is impossible on anything which it contains to erect a theory respecting the final destinies of mankind or the nature of the life which awaits them beyond the grave.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GENERAL POSITIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT RESPECTING A FUTURE STATE.

In this chapter I propose to consider the general affirmations of the New Testament respecting a future state, apart from its special teaching respecting retribution. This last subject will be considered in subsequent chapters.

The most careless reader cannot help being struck by the contrast between the Old and the New Testaments in their teaching respecting the survival of our conscious personality and its condition after death, and especially by the absence of any reference to it in the former as an incentive to holiness and a deterrent from sin, and the habitual use made of it in the latter for that purpose.* In the one this world is viewed as the region of life and joy, and Hades and death as that of darkness and of gloom. All this in the other is reversed: death loses its terrors; Hades has ceased to be the land of darkness; and to those who die in the faith of Christ, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. In

I use the words "survival of our conscious personality" for the purpose of keeping clear of various metaphysical and ontological difficulties with which this subject has been needlessly perplexed. To us the practical and all-important question is, Shall we ourselves survive the stroke of death with a consciousness that we are the same beings that we have known ourselves to have been during life; and will our conduct here exert any influence on our condition in the unseen world? Disquisitions about the soul may be interesting as affording subjects for intellectual discussion; but the one great question—the only question to us of practical importance—is, Shall I, in my conscious personality, survive the dissolution of my body, and will my conduct here affect my condition hereafter ?

the Old Testament its promises and threatenings are sanctioned by considerations derived from the present life alone; in the New, they are sanctioned almost exclusively from considerations derived from the life to come. In the Old Testament, continued prosperity is promised as the reward of obedience, and adversity, destruction, and a dishonoured burial are threatened as the result of disobedience and of sin; and its most fervent preachers of righteousness, whatever may have been their individual hopes or fears, never enforce their exhortations by considerations drawn from an existence after death. In the New Testament this aspect of things is completely changed. All our hopes and fears are concentrated on the future. Not one word is said of actual prosperity in this life as the reward of obedience. On the contrary, our Lord again and again warns his disciples, that the result of following him, as far as this world is concerned, would be self-denial, suffering, and, not infrequently, persecution and death, in return for which they would receive full compensation in the age to come. St. Paul says

expressly, and doubtless as the result of a most trying experience, "If in this life only we have hope towards Christ, we are of all men most miserable." Yet he was sustained by the consideration that though "his outward man was decaying, his inward man was being renewed day by day; and that his light affliction, which was but for a moment, was working for him more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." If in the New Testament the comforts of religion are referred to, they are uniformly described as flowing from internal sources and not from external prosperity, of which it contains no promise. On the contrary, our Lord again and again warned his followers against the expectation of it as the result of their adhesion to him, in language similar to the following:

"He that loveth his life, loses it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."