eth freely, and where "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal," proceedeth "out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." And that heavenly river is described as having "on each side of it the tree of life," whose leaves are "for the healing of the nationss."

And indeed the whole surface of the earth, as well without as within the mysterious barriers of Paradise, was then under its Maker's blessing; the earthly mist or fountain watered, not Eden only, but the whole face of the ground. And this source of moisture it probably was, which maintained animal and vegetable life upon the world, during the whole of the period which intervened between the fall and the deluge. For though Holy Scripture contains no positive statements on the subject, yet its language seems to intimate that the rain from heaven did

s Rev. xxii. 2.

not fall till that great catastrophe, by which the old antediluvian world was destroyed. And in this, it should seem, we may trace a great mystery. Man's state in Paradise, was one, if we may so say, of grace in itself, and needed not external supplies of grace from heaven. And, even after his expulsion from Eden, the relics of the graces and blessings, bestowed upon his primal seat of happiness, accompanied him in his exile. He might still drink of the rivers which flowed from Paradise, and be refreshed by the same spreading mist which moistened and cooled its bowers. And thus his own race, those of the different animals, and the tribes of the vegetable kingdom, were preserved by the remnants of his original blessings, even as his faith received its nutriment from the revelations of Eden, and from the traditions thence derived.

But, the world having become a world

of sin, it was necessary that further supplies, as well of grace as of knowledge, should be poured out upon it from on high. The waters of the antediluvian world might nourish giants, and it may be, vegetables of proportionately colossal dimensions, but other sources were to nourish the regenerate temples of the Holy Ghost, and to give nutriment to those products of the vegetable kingdom which, by the mysterious power of the Church's consecration, were to sustain and cherish the elect children of God unto eternal, as well as unto temporal life. Ere these could spring and grow, it was needful that the old world should perish, overwhelmed by water, and that a new world should arise from the disappearing waves, as from a great font of baptism. Then did God set the bow of His covenant in the cloud, a sign at once that no second baptism of water should be given

to the world, and also that all the clouds which, throughout its whole existence, were to supply the means of nourishment and life to its animals and vegetables, were connected with, and as it were originally derived from, that baptismal flood which was then disappearing. From those waters of heaven were to be derived the increase of the corn, the wine, and the oil, which, in their Sacramental uses, were to strengthen the hearts and make cheerful the countenances of God's chosen, with a strength and with a cheerfulness above all that this outward and visible frame of things could bestow.

Those only who have attentively weighed the numerous passages of the Old Testament in whichwhile it is evident that a reference is made to Sacramental blessings-corn, and wine, and oil are mentioned in union, are in a position to appreciate, in any degree, the loss, which our Anglican branch of the Church must have sustained, by the withdrawal from us of that holy custom of anointing, in baptism and on other Sacramental occasions, which had prevailed

7. AND THE LORD GOD FORMED MAN OF THE DUST OF THE GROUND, AND BREATHED INTO HIS NOSTRILS THE BREATH OF LIFE, AND MAN BECAME A LIVING SOUL.

We can scarcely fail to remark the difference between this description of the formation of man, and the accounts already given of the creation of the inferior animals and things inanimate. The Lord God is here described as though Himself acting, or so to speak, working;

in all branches of the Church Catholic from the days of the Apostles. In these miserable days of the Church's division, no one separate branch ought, perhaps, to expect to retain the fulness of her Sacramental blessings in the days of her unity. We have lost the oil the laity, in another branch, have lost the wine. And most thankful should we be for what we have preserved. But yet it were not good to shut our eyes, either to the loss we have sustained, or to the sin of our fathers, by which that loss was incurred. Above all, let us avoid the ignorant impiety of glorying in our shame, or esteeming ourselves purer than others in proportion as we have rejected God's Sacramental gifts, and abandoned scriptural and Apostolic ordinances which others observe.