lessons taught by the Scriptures; and all his remarks have been written with the design of recommending the attentive and prayerful perusal of the Bible. By combining or comparing facts,by tracing them to their principles,—by analyzing character, and forming every judgment on it according to the unerring laws of God,-treasures of wisdom, contemplative and practical, may be found in the Sacred Writings, building up man in holiness here, and while preparing him for the unclouded glory and perpetual felicity of heaven, blessing him with foretastes of it as pure and elevating as they are delightful.

The youthful reader especially—but not the youthful reader only-is earnestly recommended to seek the ability of reading the word of God with pleasure and profit. For this purpose, let him read it frequently, giving up some of his less important converse with man, that he may often in his closet converse with God. Let him read it with much thought, and much prayer, and every perusal shall be more delightful and more advantageous than the one which went before.

ENOCH.

"AND Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."-Genesis v. 24.

"By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God."-Hebrews xi. 5.

WE are carried back, by these texts, to a very remote antiquity. In the first and second chapters of Genesis, we have the history of Creation, and of the first days of human life. In the third chapter, we have the history of the temptation of man, his fall, and the consequences of it. In the fourth chapter, we have the account of the murder of Abel by Cain, with the circumstances leading to it; and of Cain's subsequent conduct, together with some notices of his immediate descendants. In the fifth chapter, there is given to us the line of Adam's posterity, by Seth, to the days of Noah, including a period of more than fifteen

centuries. Of this period the sacred history gives scarcely any information beyond the names constituting the particular line of descent now mentioned; conjecture, therefore, would be wrong as well as useless. We see, indeed, the wickedness of the heart, breaking forth in the case of Cain; and we have a few notices of the progress of society among his immediate descendants. And we know only too well, that where society advances in what are called the arts of life, without the guiding and restraining influence of religion, corruption makes a fearfully rapid progress. And the account given us of what may be regarded not merely as the close of the period, but the development of the principles which had been at work during its continuance, and their maturity, and ultimate triumphs, demonstrates, not only the existence and power of this particular law,—so often illustrated in the history of mankind,-but its actual and unrestricted operation. In the days of Noah, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth." Great it must have been, for "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth :" so that "the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence."

Two circumstances are particularly mentioned in connexion with the line of Seth. About the

time that Enos, the son of Seth, was born, men began to call upon the name of the Lord." Of course, worship did not then begin; for Abel both worshipped, and worshipped acceptably. But perhaps it was then (Enos was only Adam's grandson) that worship became the act of the society, as well as of the family. Cain had gone out from the presence of the Lord; and there is too much reason to fear, that among his descendants religion had no existence. All was unbelief; and, as following unbelief, rapidly increasing moral corruption. Seth would worship with his father; but, about the time of the birth of Enos, society had assumed a definite and independent form, and in that form, in the line of Seth, men began to call upon the name of the Lord." Religion became one of the elements of social development; one of the expressions of social character. was acknowledged by the acts of the body corporate, as well as by those of separate individuals. So, ages afterwards, though at an early period of the history of the new world, and in the neighbourhood of Palestine, where original truth was still acted upon, direct idolatry was a public crime. Men might not plead their rights against the acknowledged rights of God. It is, indeed, possible to abuse this, by placing human require

God

ments on the level of divine rights; but the principle is both sound and necessary. Where God is passed by, there God passes by. If, to escape the inconveniences and evils of the abuse of good, the good itself is rejected in its obligation, the blessings of the good will not be given in the rule of Providence. When society withholds obedience, to the same extent God withholds his blessing. When society connives at the evil which it should denounce, it shares in the guilt, and must abide by the consequences. But in Job's days, when the traditions of primitive truth were still, in his neighbourhood, cherished, the denial of the God that is above, was an iniquity to be punished by the judge. If society is to prosper, it must have both the uniting, the restraining, the purifying, and the elevating influences of a publicly acknowledged religion. And the manner in which society has in all ages dealt with religion, can only be explained by referring it to some principle adopted and embodied in its earliest movements. Men began to call upon the Name of the Lord.

The second circumstance particularly mentioned in connexion with this genealogical history, relates to Enoch. Of this eminent saint no details are given. The account only refers to general facts.