What distillations of spiritual influence have dropped down out of heaven, through the ages, to help onward this joint work! What histories of human experience have come in the other direction to the same end!--fraught with the emotions of the human heart, from the first sin and sorrow of Adam to our own griefs, hopes, and joys; and all so many lessons for the discipline of this high-born nature with us! And yet how slow and almost imperceptible has been the development of this nature! How gently and gradually the expanding influences, human and divine, have been let in upon its latent faculties! See with what delicate fostering the petals of love, faith, and hope were taught to open, little by little, their hidden life and beauty,--taking Moses' history of the process.

First, one human being on the earth, surrounded with beasts and birds that could give him no intelligent companionship and no fellow-feeling.

Then the beautiful being created to meet these awakening yearnings of his nature; then the first outflow and interchange of human love.

The narrative brings us to the next stage of the sentiment.

Sin and sorrow afflict, but unite, both hearts in the saddest experience of humanity.