Most people are very apt to think that if they had been situated like this first human pair, they should have behaved more wisely. But do we not all of us have nearly the same experience as our first parents? We are all capable of living innocently--and of enjoying the bliss, the Eden, the paradise--which innocence bestows. But we voluntarily cast away our innocence; we eat the forbidden fruit; we commit sin; we become degraded; we lose the favor of God; we stand before him as sinners! Like Adam and Eve, then, we are cast out; like them we find thorns and briars in our way; like them we encounter cares, and doubts, and fears, and sorrows, in our journey through life. We eat our bread by the sweat of the brow. Who is there, that does not feel that his errors are his own--that he, and he only, is responsible for them? Instead, therefore, of saying that if we had been placed in another’s situation, we had done better than he has done, let us rather look to ourselves--and instead of palliating or hiding our faults, let us confess them before God, with an humble, and contrite, and obedient heart--and ask forgiveness for them in the name of the Redeemer. THE MOLE.--It is said that the mole, in its movements under ground, always turns its back to the sun, burrowing from east to west in the morning, and from west to east in the evening. Merry’s Adventures. CHAPTER XX. A month passed away after my uncle’s death, during which I was in a sort of maze; I did not know what to do, and now, after many years are gone, I can hardly recollect anything that occurred during that period. I only know that I wandered over the house, from one room to another; I then went into the fields; rambled about the farm, and seeming by a sort of instinct to avoid everybody. I did not wish to speak to any one. I seemed lost, and it was not till the day came when the tavern was to be sold, with all its furniture, that I was fully recalled to consciousness. I remember that day well. The sale was by auction, and the place which had been a home to me for years, was knocked off to the highest bidder. The purchaser was a stranger to me, and took immediate possession. I still remained in the house; and it was not till three or four days after he and his household had come, that the idea entered my head that I was to leave it. The man said to me one day--“Well, Mr. Merry--when do you intend to go?” I did not understand him at first, but in a moment it rushed into my mind, that this was a hint for me to depart.