184 ANNUAL REPORT. 



perfect beings and the introduction of sin and misery in the lives of 

 men. What shall their punishment be? A limit to their lives? 

 Dissolution of the body some nine or ten hundred years afterward? 

 Phj'sical toil, — the mere cultivation of the soil and the tending of 

 flocks,— a pleasure to well-orsfanized men? For Mother Eve, the 

 duties of the home and the care of her family? This does not 

 satisfy the poet's conception of trouble. Some crushing woe must 

 be made to fall, and they are banished from their garden. 



" Banished ! Oh, Friar, the damned in hell do use that word, 

 Howlings attend it." 



A redeeming thought in relation to this woeful banishment is 

 that we are not told that they had either made the garden by 

 their own toil or bought it with a price, or had a warranty deed 

 or any bond for a deed, or were foreclosed out of it on a mortgage. 

 But though they were tenants at will, we can agree with the 

 writer that no greater punishment could have been devised and 

 made probable to suit the circumstances of the case than to drive 

 them out of the garden, without any equipments to make another. 

 We are not even told that they were allowed to carry away their 

 garden implements or seeds for a new crop, or cions from any of 

 the trees, unless possibly Mother Eve had some from the apple 

 tree concealed about her person. 



Much of the poetry of the Hebrew nation is concentrated in the 

 Song of Solomon. I shall take the liberty of erasing the head 

 lines of the scribes and consider it for what it appears to be, — a 

 song of love. And now look through it and see how at every turn 

 of the poet's thought, some picture of the garden flashes into view: 



"As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved 



arrong the sons." 

 " I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit 



was sweet to my taste." 

 "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples ; for I am sick of love." 

 " Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowery appear on 



the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of 



the turtle is heard in the land." 



I will take the further liberty of adding a line to this song, and 

 say of this turtle, which is supposed to be our gentle friend, the 

 turtle dove — 



"Behold, where she alighteth in the strawberry patch, there is the first 

 ripe berry;" 

 And still another line, 



"Also, she is welcome to it." 



"The fig-tree putteth forth her green leaves, and the vines with the 

 tender grape give a good smell." 



