the great multitude of their sons and daughters looked upon their faces with pity, and hearkened to the words of their lips with reverence. They told us the tales of the old time. And they said unto us, with tears in their aged eyes, Our children, we transgressed in Eden, and brought death and wo upon you, and upon your sons and daughters, unto the thousands of thousands of generations that are to come into the world. But our Father in Heaven has not forsaken us, and he will not forsake you. When we were in Eden, the beautiful garden of God, the angels came down upon the bright beams of the Greater Light to talk with us every morning and evening. But in these dark days we are blessed with few of the visions of Heaven. Once in a number of years we meet in the solitary places an angel of God, who bringeth us tidings of comfort and hope from above. We should have been without hope in the world, if the LORD God had not cursed the serpent, saying, I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. This saying has been interpreted unto us by the angel of the LORD. After a long course of the Ages of Men, one of our own seed shall be adopted as the Son of God. He shall not be like unto those who are now called the Sons of God, and who go in unto the daughters of men, to raise up men of re

nown, who increase the wickedness of the world, but he shall be made like unto his Father in Heaven. As all have died in us, so in him shall all be made alive. After many thousands of years the great day of the LORD God will come, when every creature, that has lived in all the ages, shall arise and sing one song of praise, like the morning stars in the day of Creation. If we had not this promise, we should be more wretched than our children. But we are comforted, and we rejoice that many of our sons and daughters are willing to hear the words of the Lord and do them. We are grieved when we look upon the wickedness of many others, and it is revealed unto us that the earth will one day be filled with violence. Some great and awful change will come upon the world in a few ages after we shall give up the ghost and go to our place, but we know not of what nature the change will be, whether it will come by water, or by fire, or by thunder, or by the sword of God. Thou rememberest the words of Adam, Zarbanad, I know that thou rememberest them. When we heard them, we went alone and wept. Oh, thou friend of my life, shall we live to see that great and terrible change of which Adam spake? When I think that it may come before a thousand years are past, my heart is almost dead within me. His words were sharper than the arrows of brass which Tubal-cain made for us when we hunted the

wild beast in the dale of Avonah. How happy are we, Zarbanad, that we live in a time when signs and marks have been found out by which the thoughts of one friend may be conveyed to another in a distant land. We can grave our thoughts upon a piece of the soft rock, and shut it up in a box made of the wood of the palm tree, and send it to our friends. who are afar off by those who travel in wagons drawn by asses, to see the land and the inhabitants thereof. I send this unto thee from my bower on the bank of the brook Sareph, where I sit in the heat of the day, with my sheep and lambs around me. I can tell thee nothing that will give thee greater pleasure than the prosperity of thy sister's son, Methuselah, who is now three hundred and seventeen years old. He is more beloved by the good people than any other young man in all the country of the hills. He has erected seventeen cities, and in one of them there are two hundred houses. He has sought out many inventions, and has added two marks to those with which Zimonidah taught us to grave the thoughts of our minds upon the rocks. His wife, Kerekka-harbach, has been slain by the thunder while she was drawing water for her flocks at the well Ezelah. When the twenty-nine years of mourning shall be numbered, according to the custom of the land, we believe that he will take unto himself a new wife. All the daughters of the land say that

he is a fairer, and a better, and a stronger man, than any of those who have taken the name of the Sons of God. There is not one of the Giants that can outrun him in the race, or lay him down upon the ground by the strength of the arms. Tirezai, the daughter of the ruler Maphuzzath, a very fair young woman, two hundred and twenty-seven years old, has composed to the harp, that Jubal gave to her in honour of her beauty and virtue, a noble song in praise of Methuselah. When he shall be five hundred and fifty years old, and shall be numbered among the elders, he will be chosen one of the chief rulers of the people. Wilt thou, friend of my life, send me the thoughts of thy heart, graven upon a piece of the soft rock of the cave Benon? I pray unto the LORD God that thy sons may be as the pillars of the altar, and thy daughters as the flowers of the garden,

EPISTLE II.

from the city of Evanam, in the great plain of Zebomar, on thể fourteenth day of the eleventh New Moon, in the year of the Creation of Adam and Eve, One Thousand and Nine.

ZARBANAD, the son of Arphazah, to Mahalah, the son of Zabach, at the city of Enoch, in the land of Nod, Health and all Happiness.

The epistle of the beloved companion of my youth was sent to me by Morah, the driver of the wagon in which our good old uncle Seth was travelling to visit his sons and daughters in the vale of Zamzummah. In going down the hill of Avek, the asses were frightened by the fall of a part of the rock that hung over the path, and ran like the little bird of the air when pursued by the terrible eagle. The wagon was torn in pieces, and the epistle of my friend was broken into fragments. Although thy thoughts, graven upon the rock of Sareph, are as dear to me as the old blind camel upon whose hard back I rode over the plain of Mashkittim, yet thou wilt believe me if I say that the broken arm of our aged uncle was the cause of more tears to myself and my daughters than the loss of what thou hadst written. Verily, it was not all lost. Morah is just and faithful. He gathered up the broken pieces of the stone and