Do none of the readers of this book recollect the time when they learned to know what they had never known before? Perhaps, my young friend, you took something that was not your own. Nobody found it out, and you tried to feel happy; but it was of no use. Can we tell why? You knew then, for the first time in your life, what it was to be a thief! "Thief, thief," seemed written everywhere. You could hardly bear your parents' kind looks. If ever they began to talk about honesty and dishonesty, how ashamed you were! It seemed as if they must find you out. Ah! you could understand what Adam and Eve felt when they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden."

And that was why the tree was called the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Never till they took that fruit did they know what disobedience was. The tree may almost have been called their teacher. It was a very different sort of lesson from what Eve expected to learn. She thought to become wiser; she only made herself and her husband miserable. And this misery was the beginning of the "death" which God had said they should "surely die."

But this is what self-will always does. Directly a child begins to think he can manage best for himself, without caring for what his parents say, his misery begins also. It is just the same with self-will towards our heavenly Father. I remem

*

ber, many years ago, reading a story about something that I have quite forgotten. Whom it was about I don't remember; what things were said and done in it I cannot tell. All is gone quite away from me except the title. What do you think it was? "Mother Knows Best." Yes, my children, those words, if properly remembered, would save many a little one more trouble than I can tell; and if Eve had but recollected "God knows best," Eden might never have been lost.

We see now what that first sin was, and what other sins are which have been committed since

that day. Disobedience to God's commands, from distrust and from self-will. To trust ourselves and not God is to be lost. This is what we are all inclined to do. And lost we are, until our gracious Father, through Christ Jesus, brings us back.

But do all my readers feel this? A gentleman was walking along Bishopsgate Street, in London, when he met two women leading between them a little child, over whom they were bending, and trying earnestly to make her say something. But the little thing only laughed in their faces, held tighter by their hands, and seemed ready to leap and run in childish glee. The poor women could scarcely keep from crying. "Is that a lost child?" said the gentleman. "Yes, sir, and she doesn't know it; we found her here, but can't make out at all who she is, nor where

she belongs." The gentleman himself tried to make the child talk, but she only clung to the women, and merrily laughed on. It was a sad sight. But is it not far more sad to see men, women, and children lost from the love and service of God, without feeling or caring about it at all?

Dear children, are you thus lost? Let me tell you once more of Jesus. He came into the world, not like Adam and Eve, into a fair and lovely garden; but he went away into the wilderness, among the rocks and terrible wild beasts. And there the tempter came to him. But Jesus could not disobey; he had no distrust, no selfwill. Satan fled away, and left Jesus to do the work of seeking and saving the lost. He is willing to save you. Turn from your sins; trust him; he will be your Friend; and by-and-by there will be for you a home far more beautiful and dear than Eden was-a place into which the serpent shall no more come, and where sin will be all done away. home is Heaven.

The name of that blessed

The Promise of a Coming Saviour.

GEN. iv. I, 2; xii. 1-3; DEUT. xviii. 15-19.

"The first baby"-Meaning of his name-The first promiseFable of Pandora's box-Two bright spirits left with menThe angels' song-Parable of the bridge-The lampsNames of the coming Saviour: "Messiah," the "Sun of Righteousness, and the "Star of Bethlehem "-A word to children about the sweetest Name of all.

I REMEMBER reading, somewhere, that a class of Sunday scholars was once very much puzzled by a question that a visitor asked them. After the children had told him who was the first man and who was the first woman, he said, "And now tell me who was the first baby." You will think that they could not have been very clever not to be able to answer this; and yet, for a time, none of them could do so. One looked up to the ceiling, another down to the ground; several tried to remember passages of Scripture that spoke of babes; one was wondering whether there was anything on the subject in the Catechism; and it was not until almost the whole class had given it up that one bright little fellow cried out," Please, sir, it was Cain!" To be How easy the question seemed when once

sure.

answered! But very likely many of my readers have never thought what was in Eve's heart when she gave that name to that first child. For what is the meaning of the word Cain? It is a Hebrew word for possession; and may be remembered more easily by turning the c into g; Cain -gain. If not quite, "gain" is very nearly the exact meaning of the first babe's name.

And why did the poor, fond mother so name her son? What did she believe she had "gained," as she clasped the little one to her bosom? Her thought was surely of a Promise, which had already comforted her and her sinning husband, Adam, when they were driven from the garden. "Now," she said to herself, "God has given me the child who shall one day crush the serpent's head." "'* Ah, she did not know what a "possession" of sorrow and sadness she had in that gentle babe! For in after days it would be seen that Cain was of the wicked one,† and instead of bruising the serpent's head, he would do the serpent's work by killing his own brother. And so that first promise-the promise made in Eden-was not yet to be fulfilled. Not yet had the Saviour come.

Some heathen nations, of old time, had a story about the entrance of sin into the world, which, I suppose, they had put together from some dreamy kind of remembrance of Adam's

* Luther translates Gen. iv. I, "I have the man, the LORD.” + I John iii. 12.