EARLY TIMES. 63 
that rebuke was earned. Pressing, therefore, the 
arm of Mahala closer to his side, he pointed out 
to her the necessity of hastening forward, to resume 
their places in the little procession. The whole 
soon reached a small, level plot on the northern 
side of the hill, on which stood a rude altar of 
square stones, — selected, not hewn, — covered with 
a broad, slaty slab, and upon the last lay a pile of 
wood. 
In front, on the west side of the altar, kneeled 
Cain and Ada. 
At the altar, standing in deep devotion, were 
Abel and Mahala, and at the side of the altar was 
Eve. Elevated above all, on the eastern side, stood 
Adam : on one hand lay the prepared victims for 
the holocaust; on the other burned the torch that 
was to light the fire on the altar. 
The first human dispenser of the great sacra¬ 
ment had no formula — no precedent. Skilled in 
the affections and passions of man, their delights 
and their dangers, and prescient of the future, he 
stood with the solemnity of a priest, and solicitude 
of a father. And when he had surveyed the scene, 
so extensive, so lovely, his eye rested upon his wife 
and children, who, with himself, constituted the 
whole world of mankind — the fountain whence 
was to flow the stream of human life, a turbid 
current, chafing and wasting where it rushed. 
But Abel and Mahala — how loving, how love¬ 
ly ! Could they suffer or provoke violence ? 
