VOL. III.

CHAPTER I.

HEAR YOU not the rushing sound of the coming tempest? Do you not behold the

clouds open, and destruction lurid and dire pour down on the blasted earth?

See you not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by the shout of heaven

that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with

agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,--

all announcing the last days of man? No! none of these things accompanied

our fall! The balmy air of spring, breathed from nature's ambrosial home,

invested the lovely earth, which wakened as a young mother about to lead

forth in pride her beauteous offspring to meet their sire who had been long

absent. The buds decked the trees, the flowers adorned the land: the dark

branches, swollen with seasonable juices, expanded into leaves, and the

variegated foliage of spring, bending and singing in the breeze, rejoiced

in the genial warmth of the unclouded empyrean: the brooks flowed

murmuring, the sea was waveless, and the promontories that over-hung it

were reflected in the placid waters; birds awoke in the woods, while

abundant food for man and beast sprung up from the dark ground. Where was

pain and evil? Not in the calm air or weltering ocean; not in the woods or

fertile fields, nor among the birds that made the woods resonant with song,

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The Last Man