fall, and are deafened by the shout of heaven
that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with
agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,--
all announcing the last days of man? No! none of these things accompanied
our fall! The balmy air of spring, breathed from nature's ambrosial home,
invested the lovely earth, which wakened as a young mother about to lead
forth in pride her beauteous offspring to meet their sire who had been long
absent. The buds decked the trees, the flowers adorned the land: the dark
branches, swollen with seasonable juices, expanded into leaves, and the
variegated foliage of spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced
in the genial warmth of the unclouded empyrean: the brooks flowed
murmuring, the sea was waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it
were reflected in the placid waters; birds awoke in the woods, while
abundant food for man and beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was
pain and evil? Not in the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or
fertile fields, nor among the birds that made the woods resonant with song,
nor the animals that in the midst of plenty basked in the sunshine. Our
enemy, like the Calamity of Homer, trod our hearts, and no sound was echoed
from her steps--

With ills the land is rife, with ills the sea,
Diseases haunt our frail humanity,
Through noon, through night, on casual wing they glide,
Silent,--a voice the power all-wise denied.[1]

Once man was a favourite of the Creator, as the royal psalmist sang, "God
had made him a little lower than the angels, and had crowned him with glory
and honour. God made him to have dominion over the works of his hands, and
put all things under his feet." Once it was so; now is man lord of the
creation? Look at him--ha! I see plague! She has invested his form, is
incarnate in his flesh, has entwined herself with his being, and blinds his
heaven-seeking eyes. Lie down, O man, on the flower-strown earth; give up
all claim to your inheritance, all you can ever possess of it is the small
cell which the dead require. Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine,
and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did
when she was not. Of old navies used to stem the giant ocean-waves betwixt
Indus and the Pole for slight articles of luxury. Men made perilous
journies to possess themselves of earth's splendid trifles, gems and gold.
Hum