e field. He envied them.
He, the fallen great one, could not bear to think that man, a being of
clay, should possess the inheritance which he by his sin had forfeited
for ever. He came to the woman, the weaker vessel, and poured the
poison of his eloquence into her ear, promising her--O, the blasphemy
of that promise!--that if she and Adam ate of the forbidden fruit they
would become as gods, nay as God Himself. Eve yielded to the wiles of
the archtempter. She ate the apple and gave it also to Adam who had not
the moral courage to resist her. The poison tongue of Satan had done
its work. They fell.

--And then the voice of God was heard in that garden, calling His
creature man to account: and Michael, prince of the heavenly host, with
a sword of flame in his hand, appeared before the guilty pair and drove
them forth from Eden into the world, the world of sickness and
striving, of cruelty and disappointment, of labour and hardship, to
earn their bread in the sweat of their brow. But even then how merciful
was God! He took pity on our poor degraded parents and promised that in
the fullness of time He would send down from heaven One who would
redeem them, make them once more children of God and heirs to the
kingdom of heaven: and that One, that Redeemer of fallen man, was to be
God's only begotten Son, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity,
the Eternal Word.

--He came. He was born of a virgin pure, Mary the virgin mother. He
was born in a poor cowhouse in Judea and lived as a humble carpenter
for thirty years until the hour of His mission had come. And then,
filled with love for men, He went forth and called to men to hear the
new gospel.

--Did they listen? Yes, they listened but would not hear. He was
seized and bound like a common criminal, mocked at as a fool, set aside
to give place to a public robber, scourged with five thousand lashes,
crowned with a crown of thorns, hustled through the streets by the
jewish rabble and the Roman soldiery, stripped of his garments and
hanged upon a gibbet and His side was pierced with a lance and from the
wounded body of our Lord water and blood issued continually.

--Yet even then, in that hour of supreme agony, Our Merciful Redeemer had
pity for mankind. Yet even there, on the hill of Calvary, He founded
the holy catholic church against which, it is promised, the gates of
hell shall not prevail. He founded it upon the rock of ages, and
endowed it with His grace, with