alarmed Adam and Eve very much, even if they did not fully understand the whole of it.

They knew enough to make them fear greatly to disobey God. They knew, that if they disobeyed him, they would lose all the happiness which they were enjoying. They would no longer have God as their Friend. He would, both in this and the future world, punish them severely. And they could see no way of escaping from this punishment. We should think that all this would have led them to be very careful, indeed, not to touch the forbidden tree, and not even to wish to touch it. But their obedience was soon to be put to a very severe test.

There was a very wicked being, called Satan, or the devil, who had once been a good angel, happy in heaven in loving and serving God. But he began, in the midst of all the holiness and happiness around him, to have wicked thoughts and feelings, He became proud and ambitious. He loved and obeyed God no longer. He did not wish God to rule over him. He would not submit to the government of God. Through his influence, and from their own wicked

thoughts and feelings, other angels began to think and feel as he did.

God could not let them remain in heaven. Heaven, you know, is a holy and happy place. It would destroy the happiness of all the good beings who are there to have wicked ones among them. Besides, God means to have all the beings whom he has made, know that he has a right to govern them ;-that it is best that he should govern them ;—and that he will govern them. If they will not yield cheerfully to his government, he must punish them for their disobedience.

How disorderly and unhappy two or three disobedient and wicked children in a family or school, or even one such child, will make it, if there is no restraint and punishment exercised! The parents and teacher, must govern and be obeyed, or all will be confusion and wretchedness.

God cast Satan and the wicked angels out of heaven. He cast them down into hell, and there, the Bible tells us, they are kept "in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day."

Satan found his way to dark and horrible prison.

Eden out of his

How he got out

or how he went to Eden, we do not know. But we are sure of one thing, that God permitted him to do it, or else he never could have effected his escape. We are sure, too, that God had wise and good reasons for permitting Satan to do so; for God never does any thing without a wise and good reason; and all that he does, like himself, is holy, just, and good.

Satan arrived in Eden. He came to see if he could not tempt Adam and Eve to be wicked like himself, and resist the authority of God. How much he must have hated God to wish to do this! How full of envy and of every bad feeling his heart must have been, to wish to make Adam and Eve sinful and wretched like himself; to have them cast out from the beautiful and pleasant garden in which they lived, and lose the friendship of God! Satan was a tempter. He was the first tempter of whom we have any account. What do you think of him? Do you wish to be like him? "No, no," you say, "I hope I shall never be such a wicked and hateful being as he is."

Take care, then, lest you follow his example. Do you never have any wrong thoughts

C

or feelings towards your parents or teachers? Do you never feel unwilling to submit to their government? If you think and feel so, you are disobeying God; for he commands you to obey your parents and teachers. You are resisting his government as Satan did. Do you ever tempt any body to do wrong, to do what you know, at the time, they ought not to do? If you do, then you are a tempter such as Satan was. Fear, fear, lest you may become more like him. Pray to God earnestly that he would help you, in future, to avoid following so dreadful an example.

Satan did not think it best to appear to Adam and Eve in his real form, a wicked and horrible looking being-an angel of darkness just come from his dreadful prison house. He became like, or entered into, a serpent, such as Adam and Eve had often seen, and of which they had no fear. It was an animal, too, which they probably had often noticed, while winding its harmless way through the grass and flowers, as possessing, in its movements and actions, a peculiar sagacity.

Thus concealed, the enemy of all good, approaching the forbidden tree, found Eve

near it, and alone. Adam was in some other part of the garden, taking care, perhaps, of the trees and plants, or gathering some fruit for food.

The serpent, or rather Satan in the form of a serpent, thus addressed Eve: "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Is it true, that your Maker would restrict you in the innocent use of any of the delicious fruit which he has produced, in such rich abundance around you? Has he placed it here, within your reach, only to provoke your appetite, and continually to torment you with the sight of what you must not taste?"

"We may eat," replied Eve "of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."

Eve remembered well what God had commanded. She ought to have shown her spirit of obedience, by disdaining to listen any longer to one who could suggest an insinuation against the goodness or justice of God, in the prohibition enjoined upon her