THE PROMISE.

"The creature was made subject unto vanity, not willingly, but by reason
of Him who hath subjected the same in hope."--_Rom_. viii. 20.

When the earth first came from the hand of God, it was "very good," and
man, the best of all the beings it contained, was subjected to a trial
of obedience. The fallen angel gained the ear of the woman, and led her
to disobey, and to persuade her husband to do the same; and that failure
gave Satan power over the world, and over all Adam's children, bringing
sin and death upon the earth, and upon all, whether man or brute, who
dwelt therein.

Yet the merciful God would not give up all the creatures whom He had
made, to eternal destruction without a ray of hope, and even while
sentencing them to the punishment they had drawn on themselves, He held
out the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the
serpent, the Devil; and they were taught by the sight of sacrifices of
animals, that the death of the innocent might yet atone for the sin of
the guilty; though these creatures were not of worth enough really to
bear the punishment for man.

Abel's offering of the lamb proved his faith, and thus was more worthy
than Cain's gift of the fruits of the earth. When Cain in his envy slew
his brother, he and his children were cast off by God, and those of his
younger brother, Seth, were accepted, until they joined themselves to
the ungodly daughters of Cain; and such sin prevailed, that Enoch, the
seventh from Adam, prophesied of judgment at hand, before he was taken