about, and as she plants the flowers on the tomb, she fancies she hears the blood of the innocent victim continually crying unto heaven to be avenged. Oh, the bitter, bitter fruits of disobedience, who can know to what misery they bring us? And then also observe Cain’s conduct in this awful crime. God’s arraignment of this fratricide was analogous to that of Adam and Eve. But Cain evades every acknowledgment of it. He not only tells a barefaced falsehood, but in a most impudent manner asks, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” What a fearful advance on the timid explanations of Adam’s transgression as he spoke to the Lord out of his hiding place. How men should tremble at the very thought of sin. But the sorrowing Eve took heart once more in the birth of Seth, “for,” said she, “God hath appointed another seed instead of Abel.” So hope in the heart, like the perpetual altar fires in the sacrifices of the temple, seemed to sing a sweet song of comfort, and every child born seemed to outweigh the bitter disappointments in the realization of the promised Redeemer. With this hope in the heart of Eve, and this beautiful language upon her lips, the Scripture account closes. How long she lived after the birth of Seth we are not informed, but of this we are assured, she believed God in His promise of the Messiah. That she misunderstood when that promise was to be realized, is quite evident, but there is every reason to believe she died in the faith of its ultimate realization, for she judged God to be righteous in the promise. What is the lesson the loss of Paradise has for us? Plainly this: The perverted use of things good in themselves. Eve saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes. From that day to this there have been women who would throw their health, their home happiness, their chance of training their children for God, their life, their honor, their hope of heaven, into a cauldron out of which might be brought something pleasant to the eyes. Eyes are good, useful and necessary, but we need to make a covenant with them not to see more than is good for our souls.