sult must be to culminate the secondary creative energies from the earth "Let us make MAN"-one man. up: Now the increase of this higher order of creation must be by procession. The unity must be preserved. There must be no species in the human race; for God has only one image. The image of God in Trinity, must be represented in man. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion." Thus the unity of man, in his extension, must manifest itself in a way which will represent the divine extension in three persons. This is done. The woman is an independent being, but yet exists by procession from the man. Here are two beings, the man and the woman. Their union forms a third. The two united form a third mystic being. The language warrants this conception: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion"-"male and female created He them." They, the man and the woman, perfect beings in themselves, shall, after the union, "be one flesh." This is a mystery. Thus the unity is preserved; the woman proceeding from the man and gaining a personality of her own, and then falling back again to the man, and in union with him constituting one mysterious being. Thus in the Trinity the Son is born from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is the bond of union again of both. The Trinity is the ground of the social in God. God is not a solitary but a social being. His social nature requires for its satisfaction beings equal with Himself. Thus, He loves the Son, is loved of Him again. He enjoys communion with the Holy Spirit, and, through both, with all his creatures. Now, Hisfimage, in its social side, must be represented in man. How wonderfully is this done in the mystery of marriage. "But for Adam there was not found an help-meet for him." Among all the creatures that passed before him, to receive their names, there was none meet, suitable, to answer to the dignity of his own being-none fit to fill out the wants of his social naturenone that he could love without stooping. That the being which should be an help-meet might be a true original creation; and not like the plants and animals, a secondary one, He placed Adam in a negative state. She was to be produced as independently of Adam, as he himself was, that she might have an origin of equal dignity. Hence, "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept." The LXX. translate the word sleep, ecstacy. He was accordingly not only insensible to pain, from the opening of his side, but he felt those dawnings of joy, which in the gift of his wife should be consummated. In this ecstatic vision there seems to have been shown to him what was done to him, as well as the mystery of the transaction. For when Eve was brought to him, without any information, but by intuition, he at once recognizes her in her intended character, mentions her origin, and gives her a name wonderfully expressive of her nature. "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." "And he took one of his ribs." Though she was an independent and direct creation, yet she was not, like Adam, made out of the ground. She was taken from the man, that she might still be part of himself. This he recognizes when she is presented to him: This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh." Here is the same being extended, made objective to himself. "Meet for him"-that is, as before him. She shall stand before him, in the Hebrew sense of that phrase, to be an "help-meet," to answer to him, to observe him, and to be the completion of his own being. The vulgar Latin translates help, "meet for him," an help like him. Like him in dignity, but only later than he as to time, and from him as to order. Her equality to him is in this, that she is a complete echo of his own being. He from God; she from God through him; and so she is now to exist to God through him. God "brought her unto the man." That is, to present her to him as his wife. God himself joined them together. The mere formation of the woman did not constitute her his wife. That requires a new exercise of goodness, a sanction from God, and a holy consecration from him. Hence Adam does not say, I will take her to wife, but he receives her as his wife: "This is now flesh of my flesh." The instinctive readiness with which he recognizes and receives her as part of himself, shows that her procession from him laid the ground of a deep natural preparation and affection in which lies the mysterious basis for marriage. Marriage is a consummation—a completion of what already exists before. "She shall be called Woman." The word which denotes woman is the same as that which is used for man, except that it has a feminine termination; ish is the man; ishah is the woman. She shall be called the female-man, because she was taken out of the man. "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife." "Therefore"-that is, because she was taken from him, and is the complement of his being, and it is not good that he be alone without her; therefore she shall return to him. The deep natural necessity which requires this union, forms a tie stronger than that which binds the man to father and mother. When he becomes "a man" the ties that bound him back to the unity of the family to which he belonged shall be now broken. He shall himself become the centre of a new circle; "not remain alone," for this "is not good;" he shall cleave unto his wife. "His wife;" she exists, God has provided one for him. It is his wife, he shall acknowledge and cleave to her. "They shall be one flesh." Here shall be a full, perfect consummation of social life. It shall be a stronger, more intimate, more perfect union than that which unites parent and child; for that shall be broken to form this. Our Saviour says, "they TWAIN shall be one flesh;" they are twain, but so completely shall their social natures answer to each other that it shall be the harmony of one being. "One flesh." This is the highest form of union that is known on earth; hence it is the symbol of that between Christ and his church. It is a mystery. It is the image of the trinity-the three are one. The man, the woman, and the one flesh, which is the joint being-each in the other, each in all, and all in each. The image of God then comes to its full revelation in the mystic man, constituted by marriage. "Male and female created he them;" this same them, had just before been called him. The unity of the "him," is not broken, but completed in the "them." The male and female, "one flesh," is the mystic man which represents God's image. As in the Trinity in Heaven, so here in marriage on earth, "each to other like," is exhibited the highest form of sociality. Hence it is the symbol of the union of Christ and the church. Hence the relation of saints to God and Christ is so frequently set forth by reference to this union. Hence the consummation of the church militant with the church triumphant is to be a marriage. Hence home is, more than anything else on earth, like heaven. SUMMER IN THE HEART. BY C. D. STUART. THE summer days may smile again, And earth may wear o'er hill and plain Her robe of golden light; Soft winds may sigh, and birds may sing, In vain is nature's art If love be cold, she cannot bring A summer to the heart! "Tis only smiles of love can warm The spirit's flowers to life; Tis friendship's voice can quell the storm, And soothe the spirit's strife. When smiles of love and friendship's voice Forsake us and depart, Though summer days the earth rejoice, 'Tis winter in the heart. THE WALL WHICH GOD BUILT. (From the German of Rukert.) BY THE EDITOR. "O MOTHER, how the snow-flakes are storming down from heaven. The snow will bury us. And what is worse, there sounds through the village the din and tumult of thronging troopers; they tramp and trot. If we only had bread in the house, it would not be so much to quarter a few soldiers." "The night is upon us, O child, and the winds are raving without. Go, lock the door and close the shutters. God will protect us from the storm and the perils of the night, and also graciously from enemies. My child, I will pray; pray with me. If God, the Lord, will stand before us, the enemy will not be able to do us harm." "O mother, what good will praying and pleading do? It cannot help us against the troopers. Hark, mother, they come riding fast. O, listen, how the little dogs are barking. Go to the kitchen quick, and make ready, so that when they come we may please them, and keep them as well as we can. The mother sits, and moves not from the place. The cellar is empty and the kitchen. She holds fast to the last, the only refuge. She prays by the feeble lamp from her book: "Build a wall around us, that our enemies may be afraid before it." She refreshes her heart with the consoling passage. "O mother, who will build us a wall that can keep out the troopers on horses. They go where they will, and are not afraid of mounds and walls." "Child, think, as a good Christian should, that nothing is too great for God to do, if only we do not loose our faith in him." The mother prays, the child smiles. He listens at the bolted door. He hears the troopers trotting. The peasants are hastening to and fro in the village. Here and there doors are creaking. "Now surely, now they are coming also to our door to distress us, mother." Nothing comes to the door but the roaring of the wind, waving, and whistling, and wailing. The troopers ere now have passed by, and are quartered in the houses throughout the village. The silence grows deeper here, and yonder. "It seems they are all quartered, and we are to have no guests." "Child, may God forgive you the evil that faith does not dwell in your heart. In penitence pray for pardon, and lie down to sleep. He has rewarded my trust in him." "Hey! my uncle, the magistrate, has spared us out of special favor, as he has often done before." The boy falls asleep, but he does not rest well. The mother reposes in sweetest confidence. Early in the morning he is up to see the departure of the troopers. As he opens the little door, he looks and is astonished, and looks again, that heaven after all can build walls. "This my uncle, the magistrate, has never done; no, never. The servants of heaven, the winds, they silently built this wall; and instead of stones, they have used soft flakes of snow.". Behold a wall of glistening snow round the whole house, to convince the unbelieving child that God can build walls. Now the boy feels as if he must tell his mother. He runs with the news, and wakes her from sleep. Then he hears the troopers; they are trotting out of the village. But, alas! he cannot see them, for the wall stands high all around. The mother, as a punishment to the boy, makes him break a way through the wall. Now he must dig and shovel. Now, when by cutting and spading he has made a way through the wall of snow, the troopers are gone! And the neighbors are standing all around talking with each other about the wonderfull wall. AN ANGEL. In describing the death and burial of a lovely child, a correspondent of the Ohio Cultivator gives this beautiful and touching glimpse of real life: "And now there came a sadder moment than all; tottering with feeble step, the grandmother, with her weight of years, had come to offer consolation to her stricken children. With wild emotion the bereaved mother leaned her head on her parent's breast, and sobbed out her grief. With holy words the old lady comforted her, and then came and bowed her head to look into that calm, infant face. "She looks like an angel, does she not, mother?" whispered the mourner. "She is an angel, my child," replied the grandmother, a solemn, lofty awe overspreading her face, she is wiser now than any of us, for she has read the great mystery." 66 WASTED. Wasted! Precious pearl of time, |