famine, or pestilence, no sickness, no death, but a life of happy contentment here, and then in God's good time a flight, soul and body, from the earthly heaven to the heaven of God. Oh! who can contemplate that ideal life without feeling his heart swell with gratitude for God's bounty, and sink with vain regret that it is lost to us forever, and burn with fierce hatred against the monster — mortal sin — that has come between us and our birthright? For, no sooner had man begun to enjoy it,. than once more the insidious serpent crept in and ruined all. God commanded; man disobeyed. Why, O man, did you eat the forbidden fruit? Because the woman tempted me. Why, O woman, did you disobey your God? Because the demon deceived me. Aye, the demon — mortal sin — is again the destroyer, and against it again bursts forth God's hatred. " Cursed be the earth," He cries, " thorns and thistles shall it produce. I will multiply your sorrows. In the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread, and at last, as dust you are, into dust you shall return." Look at our stricken parents as they fly from the face of God's anger out into the dreary world, and let their wailings be your answer to the question: What is the malice of a mortal sin? Let the clanging of the bolts and bars of heaven's gate as it closes, not to be reopened for four thousand years, be an answer to that question. Let the difference between the harmony in man's soul and in nature before sin- and the disorder there after sin proclaim sin's malice* For man's rebellion against God was immediately
