The passage just quoted seems to imply all this. It is not meant that Adam did not sin, and was not deceived by the tempter, but that the woman opposed a feebler resistance to the temptation than he would have done; and that the temptation, as applied to her mind, would have been ineffectual on him. To tempt and seduce him to sin, there needed all the soft persuasions, the entreaties, and example of his wife, Satan understood this, and approached man not with the specious argument of the serpent, but through the allurements of his wife. Some have supposed that Adam was not at all deceived by the tempter; that he saw at once all his suggestions were lies; but that foreseeing what Eve had done, how she had plunged herself into ruin, he, out of mere love to her, and with his eyes open, determined to share her fate. But the apostle's words do not necessarily convey this; but merely that he was not deceived first, nor directly, by the tempter, but after, and by his wife. Her fall was occasioned by the deception of Satan alone; his by the deception of Satan, aided by the persuasion of the woman. *

SECONDLY. Having considered the Scriptural account of woman's condition at the creation, and the means by which, through her, the human race was brought into its present state of sin and misery, we may next notice the very explicit and frequent mention which is made in the Scripture of her numerous relations in social life, with the descriptions it gives of her various characters. It certainly tends deeply *See Barnes's Note on the passage.

to impress us with the importance of woman, and to raise her in her own and in our estimation, to see how every one of her relations is constantly brought before us on the sacred page, as if the duties connected with each were of vast consequence to society. Not one is omitted: all are recognized and dwelt upon. Woman is ever before us in one or other of

her many relations to the community.

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Not only is there much said about the son, but also about the DAUGHTER. This relationship is not only included in the generic term of children, but it is also set out by itself in its own species. How commonly is it mentioned in connection with the children of the other sex, and "the sons and the daughters" are spoken of. A beautiful instance of which we have in the words of the Psalmist, "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; and our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." Or, as corner pillars, wrought like those of a palace," that is, in their fittest and best proportions, combining strength, beauty, and symmetry, both of body and of soul: than which, no comparison can be more elegant and delicate. In the exquisite poetry of the Hebrews, how commonly is this relationship employed as the metaphor of countries, states, and cities! Jerusalem comes before us as "the DAUGHTER of Zion," sometimes jubilant in her prosperity, and then, as in the lamentations of Jeremiah, covered with sackcloth and bathed in tears.

The word SISTER occurs almost in every portion

of the Word of God, like a floweret, lowly and lovely amid others of larger growth and more imposing form and color. How sweet and gentle a spirit is sometimes seen in that sister's form amid her brothers' more robust ones; and what a softening influence does the spell of her fascinating tenderness throw over their ruder natures. Thus we are reminded by Scripture, that the younger female branches of the family are to be thought of as having their separate claims upon parental regard and brotherly affections. How many families are laid open in the Bible to our view, of which the sisters, as well as the brothers, are brought prominently into notice.

How much may it be supposed would be said about the WIFE: and how much is said about the close and endearing relations. To form the character, and direct the conduct of the wife, is worth all the pains that have been bestowed by innumerable writers; and we might have been very sure, even before we had read a page of revelation, that much would be there found touching this relationship. The book of Proverbs, that admirable manual for domestic and social life, is quite a manual for wives, as well as for every other member of the family circle. Unusual pains seem taken for the right

*Mrs. Ellis's admirable works to females, as Woman, Wives, Mothers, and Daughters, need no recommendation of mine. The public have already set their seal of approbation upon them, by the several editions through which they have passed.

formation of her character. How frequently and how impressively does Solomon refer to woman, as sustaining this close and tender relation. In what exalted and glowing terms does he speak of it, when it comprehends the graces and the excellences which it should always possess, "Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing."-Prov. xviii. 22. "A prudent wife is from the Lord."-xix. 14. Who has ever read, or can read, without admiration, his beautiful description of a virtuous woman, in the closing chapter of his inestimable Proverbs? Can we wonder that he who had this elevated idea of the value of such a companion, should again and again exhort the young husband to live joyfully with the wife of his youth, and, forsaking all others, cleave to her alone? In this he did but copy the beautiful and poetic picture of connubial happiness which had been furnished to him by his father David, if, indeed, he was the author of that Psalm,

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Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house; thy children like olive-plants round about thy table.”—Psalm cxxviii. 3. "The vine," says Bishop Horne, "a lowly plant, raised with tender care, becoming, by its luxuriance, its beauty, its fragrance, and its clusters, the ornament and glory of the house to which it is joined, and by which it is supported, forms the finest imaginable emblem of a fair, virtuous, and faithful wife. The olive-trees planted by the inhabitants of Eastern countries round their banqueting places in their gardens, to cheer the eye by their verdure, and to

refresh the body by their cooling shade, do no less aptly and significantly set forth the pleasure which parents feel at the sight of a numerous and flourishing offspring."

On the other hand, Solomon directs all the powers of his bitter eloquence and irony against the degraded woman, whose deadly work none has ever signalized with more holy indignation. How does he brand the crime of the harlot in the second and fifth chapters of the book of Proverbs; and with what awful correctness describe the conduct of the adulteress in the seventh. Nor does he stop here, but descends to the characters of women who, though less guilty than those to whom we have just alluded, are still deserving of severe reprobation" The foolish woman, who plucketh her house down with her hands" (xiv.): "the brawling woman, whose society is more intolerable than dwelling in a corner of the house-top, or in the wilderness" (xxi. 9—xx. 24): “the woman that maketh ashamed, who is a rottenness in the bones of her husband" (xii. 4): "the odious woman, whose marriage is one of the four things for which the earth is disquieted, and which it can not bear" (xxx. 23): "the fair woman without discretion, whose beauty is like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout" (xi. 22): "the contentious wife, that continual dropping on a very rainy day" (xix. 13). This same Solomon, at the period when he had reached a penitent and reformed old age, and when all the events of his life had passed in review before