ABSTRACT
Who can behold this beautiful world, and imagine, for a moment, that it was designed to be the abode of miserable beings? The earth arrayed in verdure, adorned with flowers, diversified with hill and dale, engirdled with the ocean, over-canopied with heaven; this earth so smiling and fruitful, so commodious and magnificent, is altogether worthy of its Maker, and not only a fit habitation for Man, created in the image of God, but a place which Angels might delight to visit on embassies of love. All nature, through all her forms of existence, calls on man to rejoice with her in the goodness of the universal Parent. The stars in their courses, the sun and moon in their changes, by day and by night, display his glory; the seasons in succession, the land and the waters, reciprocally, distribute his bounty; every plant in its growth is pleasing to the eye, or wholesome for food; every animal in health is happy in the exercise of its ordinary functions; life itself is enjoyment. Yet in the heart of man there is something which incapacitates him from the full fruition of the blessings thus abundantly dealt around him: something which has introduced disorder into his mind, and disease into the frame; darkening and bewildering his intellect; corrupting and inflaming his passions; and hurrying him by a fatality of impulse to that excess in every indulgence, which turns aliment into poison, and from the perversion of the social feelings produces strife, misery, and confusion to families, to nations, to the world. What is it? It is sin! – This cannot have been in man from the beginning, otherwise his Creator could not be a God of holiness, order, and beneficence; nor would He have formed the universe
so excellently fair, and so admirably conducive to the felicity of its inhabitants.
