The second punishment to which woman was to be subjected was that of being ruled over by her husband. This portion of her curse, we must confess, has not been an entire failure. Many women, even in civilized countries, are not only ruled over, but tyrannized over, by their husbands. Yet this state of things has by no means been universal. On the contrary, in many cases, woman has been the ruling party; and, in some instances, they have not merely ruled their own husbands, but all the husbands in the nation. Queen Mary, Queen Anne, and Queen Victoria, and many others, are examples of this kind; and then there have been thousands of women in all ages and countries who never had any husbands. Consequently the curse is a failure in their cases. The curse of husband-dominion, then, has not fallen upon woman as a sex. There was to be enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (i.e., their offspring) as the third part of woman's curse; but we find no evidence that this part of the curse has ever been fulfilled. We observe no more enmity between men and serpents than between men and other noxious reptiles and ravenous beasts. How much enmity exists between the Hindoo juggler and the serpent that twines around his arm and neck, and crawls through his bosom? We may be told in reply that it is not the common serpent that is referred to here, but the serpent-devil that beguiled Eve; but we do not learn that his Devilish Majesty ever had any offspring. So this part of the curse, in a general sense, is a failure also. THE CURSE OF THE SERPENT. The curse pronounced upon the serpent was of a twofold character. He was doomed to crawl upon his belly. How he traveled previous to that period we have no means of knowing, as revelation is silent on this momentous subject. He must have crawled on his back, or hopped on his head or tail,--either of which we should consider a much more difficult mode of traveling than that inflicted on him by the curse. I can see no curse or punishment in an animal or reptile traveling in its natural way, and by the easiest mode known in the whole animal kingdom. To make a curse of his mode of travel, he should have been turned the other side up, so that, while wiggling or wriggling along on his back, his eyes and mouth would get full of dust and mud. This would have been much more like a punishment,--a more real and sensible curse than his present mode of traveling. The second mode of punishing the serpent was to compel him to eat dust as an article of diet; but some difficulty must have arisen in attempting to comply with the injunction. When the ground is saturated with water, he would have to take a meal occasionally of mud, which would not be more nutritious than dust, and would not be fulfilling the law. But it is needless to speculate. It is evident he does not subsist in that way, but, like the other culprits, escaped the penalties or punishments due to his crime.