"'And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.'" "Alas! How many children are tempted to their ruin by the appeal to their senses! Some become intemperate and gluttons from their inordinate love of eating; others, from their overweening fondness for dress and display, are carried into the vanities of the world, and thus lose their souls." "I once heard," continued the gentleman, "of a poor peasant in England, who, on one occasion, met with a company of persons that disbelieved the Bible and the sacred truths it contained. "'They argued and reasoned,' said the poor man, 'until they shook my belief. But all the time I knew I was in error, only I was so ignorant I could not answer their objections. "'At length one of them asked me, "How can you be so foolish as to suppose that God would destroy Adam and all his descendants just for eating an apple?" "'I had often reflected upon this weak objection raised by unbelievers; and I instantly answered, "It was not that our first parents ate a particular kind of fruit; it was, that they had disobeyed God. It was, sir, that they broke the rule."'" CHAPTER XVI. THE BROKEN COVENANT; OR, THE FAMILY OF THIEVES. QUESTION XVI. _Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?_ ANSWER. The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. —————— "I HOPE we shall have a long story this time," exclaimed Isabelle, as they were seated around the fire, waiting for their father and mother, who were engaged with company. "That was a good story last time," rejoined Walter. "Don't you remember father told us about the trees in the garden, and how the serpent talked with Eve? I wonder if the serpent looked like the great snakes we have now." At this moment Mrs. Dermott returned to the room, and, having heard her son's remark, took from the library a volume of Milton's Paradise Lost, and read,— "His head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant; pleasing was his shape and lovely." "I shouldn't want to see him," cried Helen, with an air of disgust; "I hate snakes."