"'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.
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"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."