"'No, and we should have been rich too,' added the youngest boy; 'and now we are so poor, I hardly ever have any new clothes, and I can't have a sled, like all the other little boys.'
"Edward sighed heavily, as the children openly expressed what had for many years been the burden of his thoughts by day and of his dreams by night. 'Yes,' he cried bitterly, as he rushed from the room to conceal his emotion; 'but for that one act of disobedience, I should now have been blessed with health and an independent fortune. O, why did I not die of the dreadful wound, instead of living to convey the seeds of death to those so dear to me! This is my bitterest thought, that they must suffer in consequence of my sin; and if they should live to become parents, they must transmit the infection to future generations.' Overcome by these thoughts, he wept aloud.
"And when his daughter rushed into the room, she saw that the handkerchief with which her father was wiping his mouth was saturated with blood.
"'O father,' exclaimed Helen, 'I don't like Edward's uncle at all. He might have given him some money, when he had so much.'
"Now," resumed the gentleman, "we will leave the story of Edward, and go back to the lesson, which says 'the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin,' just as the children of Edward, by his disobedience, forfeited the favor of his uncle, lost all the healthfulness and the property which they might have inherited, and were visited with poverty, disease, and wretchedness.
"Adam, you know, was created holy, or righteous—a quality here called 'original righteousness.' When he fell, he lost all this; and all those who descended from him lost it with him. Their natures, which would have been holy, causing them to think holy thoughts, to speak holy words, and to perform holy actions, became wholly corrupt. And henceforth they went 'astray from the womb speaking lies;' 'they have all gone out of the way;' 'they have altogether become sinful;' 'there is none that doeth good, no, not one.' The chief prophet of Israel gives this account of the human heart: 'The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it.'
"Can you tell me, Walter, what are actual transgressions?"
"I suppose they are such as are acted out, as when we steal, or lie, or swear, we commit actual transgressions."
"Yes, and we also commit them when we indulge wicked or unkind thoughts, which proceed from a corrupt heart. If we neglect the duty of prayer, or of keeping holy the Sabbath, all these flow from a carnal mind, and are actual transgressions of the law of God. David prays,—
"'Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer!'