resolve itself into the divine will and pleasure. At the same time it must be admitted, and should be borne in mind, that a certain analogy pervades all the works of God as we now behold them, and that consequently we do really possess to a considerable extent, data by which to discriminate between undoubted fiction, and what is only not exactly according to the present course of things. And so the man who derides the Mosaic history of the creation, cannot retort upon us that according to our premises, all being alike mysterious and incomprehensible, we may as properly believe in the fables of the Hindoos, as in our own scriptures; for we reply, that the Mosaic history of the creation is not opposed to the analogy of the world as we now see it, but the Hindoo mythology is altogether at variance with that analogy, and that on this ground we reject it as fabulous. And surely the ingenious sceptic should admit that the ground of analogy is a most valid one, and that here the Jewish and Christian scriptures are distinguished from merely fabulous narrations. And taking the statement in our text, as an illustration of this assertion, we may fairly appeal to the analogy which we discover, between the creation of the first pair and the present order of nature, in proof that the Mosaic history does not record facts altogether opposed to the present state of things. For example:-In connexion with the record that Adam's body was fashioned of the dust, we have the daily experience that the human frame, consisting, as we behold it, of flesh and blood, and bones, does eventually resolve itself into particles of dust: and again, when we read that from the living body of the man, another human being was derived, here we recognise, although ne

cessarily under another form, the same law of nature that is now in operation, in the multiplication of the human species. We repeat then. that the infidel has no reasonable ground of objection to such a text as our present one, nor can he with any degree of propriety rank it, as it is lamentable to think he does, with the sort of traditions which all thinking minds agree in rejecting. He may be defied to form to himself, or to give us, a more probable account of the creation of the first pair than that supplied by Moses; but as the fact is that he cannot really conceive of any beginning of the human species, his only resource will be in Atheism, or in the notion that all things have existed from eternity just as we behold them.

And now dismissing the recollection of the unreasonable cavils of the scorner, we turn again to our text, and behold in it the completion of a work worthy of the divine Creator. A woman was now formed, the very counterpart of the man, although of a different sex, and so in all respects suited to be the companion and friend of his life. Created like the man, in the image and likeness of the triune God, the woman possessed in common with him the same spiritual, intellectual, and moral nature; (chap. i. 27, 28.) the same capabilities for holding communion with her Maker and with the invisible world; the same powers for investigating the phenomena of the things seen and temporal; the same benevolence of heart, the same generous affections. And like the man, she too was to have dominion over all the inferior orders of living creatures, and was to subdue the material elements to her own use. (chap. i. 28.) In the original gift of the world to man, we perceive that the gift was also to the woman, who took her

equal place beside the man, being in no respect his inferior, but sharing with him the empire of the earth. And here we may see that an end is put to the questions which some are fond of agitating, as to the fact of any radical difference, in the powers and capabilities, physical, intellectual, and moral, of the two sexes. At the first there was no real difference, no supremacy assigned to the man above the woman. No highest place existed in regard to either of the sexes. Both were placed by God in an equal degree of honour, and the only contest as to rank then was how each could most honour and exalt the other, how each could most effectually promote the other's happiness. To love their Maker supremely, was the only idea of eminency that could possibly exist, before sin had poisoned the fountain of man's heart; before selfishness had infused the lust of dominion into his soul. (Matt. xx. 20-28.) And the first equal condition of the two sexes being proved by a reference to the former chapter, verse 28. it is also doubly proved from the fact of the woman's being created by God as an help-meet for the man; for had she been inferior to the man in any of her capabilities, the companionship of such an inferior could not have tended to develope his powers, but on the contrary would rather have retarded and diminished their due exercise. For how apt is the mind to sink beneath its proper level, if doomed to the converse of inferior minds; how does the lofty and pure spirit become enfeebled, when it meets with no adequate response in other hearts! It is only in communion with our equals that our powers gather strength; egotism also, and self-sufficiency, are soon engendered in the heart of him who is conscious of his superio

rity to those around him. But no such idea of supremacy, no such consciousness of superiority, possessed the mind of the first man, when the human being of a different sex was presented to him by his Maker; for in her he recognised a being created like himself in the image and likeness of God, one to whom the dominion of all living creatures and the subjugation of the earth was assigned in common with himself; in her also he acknowledged the helpmeet provided by his wise and gracious God, the suitable friend and companion of his earthly life.

Some reference has already been made to the statement of our text in regard to the bodily formation of the woman, but only in connexion with the objections which the infidel is apt to urge against the narration. To the believer it may now be suggested, that in the circumstances which attended the creation of the female, we may discern the foundation of the great truth brought before the Gentiles by the Apostle Paul, (Acts xvii. 26.)—that God has made of one blood all nations of men: also the ground of the kindly sympathy that was to exist between all the members of the human family; for as the same Apostle argues, no man hateth his own flesh, but loveth and cherisheth it ;" (Eph. v. 29.) and again, “if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it," "so that we being many are one body, and members one of another." (1 Cor. xii. 12. &c. Rom. xii. 5.) And here too we are further instructed in the ground of the peculiar sympathy, which was to unite together the two sexes of whom the whole human family is composed. For it is evident from the text, that Adam felt himself instinctively drawn towards his

66

newly created help-meet, with feelings of a kind somewhat similar to those which animate a mother's heart, when for the first time she beholds the infant to which she has given birth. There would be in Adam's case, the same sort of devoted, deeply tender, and instinctive love towards his Eve, connected with the fact, that "she was taken out of man,' being "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh." We shall do well to observe also, that in the original ground of Adam's personal attachment to his female companion, as it is set before us in the text, there is no indication whatever, of any thing approaching to those feelings of sensual desire, which are now supposed by the far greater part of Adam's fallen offspring to be the only real links which unite man to woman. From all such feelings we must believe Adam in his first state of righteousness to have been altogether free, and in spite of the philosophic scorn that may attach to such an opinion, it may be asserted on the authority of scripture,-that sensual desire is the fruit of sin, and nothing more than the base and unhappy substitution of lust in the place of that pure love which at the first united Adam to his wife.

"VERSE 24.-" Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh." These words, if we believe them to have been spoken by Adam, we must suppose were uttered by him under a peculiar inspiration, and prophetic knowledge of the ties of kindred which would afterwards unite together his human offspring; but Moses may probably be the speaker, and in that case the sacred historian, who was also the law-giver of the Jewish people, would be taking occasion here to enforce upon his disciples, those same principles of