"We learn," commenced Mr. Dermott, "in the third chapter of Genesis, that when God first created man, he allowed him to have free communion with himself. Adam and Eve expressed no surprise when they heard the voice of the Lord in the garden. It seems to have been an event of frequent occurrence; but after they had sinned, they were afraid to come into his presence, and hid themselves; just as a child who has disobeyed the commands of his father is afraid to meet his eye.
"All communion between them was lost, and they fell under his wrath. He told Eve that, in consequence of her disobedience, she should have sickness and sorrow; and that, instead of the confiding love with which her husband had heretofore regarded her, as she had so wickedly misused her influence, she should henceforth become subject to his rule. To Adam he said,—
"'Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground.'
"Just see what misery the first married pair brought upon themselves by their rash defiance of God's commands. Into how many parts does the answer divide this misery?"
Walter glanced at the answer in the book, and replied, "Into six."
"And do all Adam's descendants come under the same?"
"Yes, sir, just as the children of Edward inherited their father's sickness and poverty."
"To the first of these we have already alluded;—loss of communion with God. Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, says,—
"'For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? what communion hath light with darkness?'
"We have seen, too, how Adam and all mankind are under God's wrath and curse, and so are made liable to all the miseries of this life—to profaneness, idolatry, and other sins. Even the tilling of the ground, which before the fall was a recreation and delight, now became laborious and painful.