under examination, expands indefinitely. Every
virtue may be read into them; every eulogium possible to a human
character shines from them. He was a devout man, a fearless preacher
of righteousness, an intimate friend of God, and the only man of his
dispensation who did not see death. He sheds a lustre on the
antediluvian age, and he shines still as an example to all generations
of steady and lofty piety.

It is difficult to realise the exact environment of the early
patriarchs. Human society was then in its making. There were giants
in those days, both physically and intellectually. They lived long,
and unfolded a vigorous manhood, by which civilisation was developed in
every direction. Some of them, also, were tenderly responsive to
supernatural influences, and thus rose to a spiritual stature which
enables them to bulk largely in sacred history.

The guiding lines of Enoch's biography are clear though few. "_He
walked with God_"; "_he pleased God_"; "_he was translated that he
should not see death_." These are the pregnant remnants of his history,
from which we may construct a character and career of striking eminence.

I.

"He walked with God."

Therefore he knew God. The articles of his creed were not many, but he
was fixed on this foundation-truth of all religion. Further than this,
he knew God as taking a living interest in His creatures, as one who
could be approached by them in prayer and communion, and who was
sympathetically responsive to their needs. He somehow knew God, also,
as being righteous and holy, and he must have had a rudimentary idea of
the Christ, as it unfolded itself in the great promise of a deliverer
from evil made to our first parents in Paradise. However scanty in
number were the articles of his creed, they were not scanty in results.
They produced a great life and a great name. The results were that "he
walked with God." Walking is the habitual exercise of a man's life. A
man runs sometimes. Under great strain, or the demand of special
circumstances, he runs, but finds that exhaustion follows; or if he
runs too frequently, total collapse is the inevitable consequence. Two
of the most eminent ministers of our times recently died owing to
overstrain and over-exertion. But we have some now living who have
done signal service for the Church during a ministry of fifty years,
and who are still hale and having a green old age. To walk at a steady
pace, fulfilling life