is cast into a deep
and quiet sleep, and when he awakes, his mate, his counterpart, an exact
answer to his wants, his cravings, perfect in her loveliness, stands
before his eyes, and fills his soul with love and ecstacy. Marriage is
instituted in its purest and highest form. The law of marriage is
proclaimed, which is just, and good, and holy in the highest degree.
Provision is made for the comfort and welfare of the new-created pair.
Their home is a paradise, or garden of delights; their task is to dress
it and to keep it. Their life is love. The _general_ law under which
they are placed is made known to them, and they are graciously warned
against transgression. The law is the perfection of wisdom and
generosity. It allows them an all but unlimited liberty of indulgence.
They may eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one.
Indulgence must have its limits somewhere, or there could be no virtue,
and without virtue there could be no true happiness.

Law, trial, and temptation are all essential to virtue and
righteousness. Here they are all supplied; supplied so far as we can
see, in their best and most considerate forms. No law is given to the
lower animals. No self-denial is required of them. They are incapable
of virtue or righteousness, and are therefore left lawless. A _child_
left to himself would bring his mother to shame; a man left to himself
would rush headlong to destruction. But birds and beasts do best when
left to themselves, or when left to the law in their own natures. Their
instincts, or God's own impulses, urge them ever in the right direction,
and secure to them the kind and amount of happiness they are capable of
enjoying. They are incapable of virtue, so they are made incapable of
vice. They cannot share the highest pleasures; they shall not be exposed
therefore to the bitterest pains. Man is capable of both virtue and
vice, and he must either rise to the one or sink to the other. He cannot
stay midway with the lower animals. Man must be happy or miserable in a
way of his own; he cannot have the portion of the brute. He must either
be the happiest or the most miserable creature on earth. He must either
dwell in a paradise, or writhe in a purgatory. He must either live in
happy fellowship with God, or languish and die beneath his frown. And in
the nature of things, the possibility of one implies liability to the
other. This is man's greatness, and bliss, and glory, that he is capable
of righ