lifetime, every remedy was tried for its cure and extirpation,
except the single one, the flower that grew in Heaven and was
sovereign for all the miseries of earth. Man never had attempted to
cure sin by LOVE! Had he but once made the effort, it might well
have happened that there would have been no more need of the dark
lazar-house into which Adam and Eve have wandered. Hasten forth
with your native innocence, lest the damps of these still conscious
walls infect you likewise, and thus another fallen race be
propagated!

Passing from the interior of the prison into the space within its
outward wall, Adam pauses beneath a structure of the simplest
contrivance, yet altogether unaccountable to him. It consists
merely of two upright posts, supporting a transverse beam, from
which dangles a cord.

"Eve, Eve!" cries Adam, shuddering with a nameless horror. "What
can this thing be?"

"I know not," answers Eve; "but, Adam, my heart is sick! There
seems to be no more sky,--no more sunshine!"

Well might Adam shudder and poor Eve be sick at heart; for this
mysterious object was the type of mankind's whole system in regard
to the great difficulties which God had given to be solved,--a
system of fear and vengeance, never successful, yet followed to the
last. Here, on the morning when the final summons came, a criminal
--one criminal, where none were guiltless--had died upon the gallows.
Had the world heard the footfall of its own approaching doom, it
would have been no inappropriate act thus to close the record of its