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and the children of her children.
Thou knowest, for I have often re-
lated it to thee, the state of Adam at
the moment of his creation: now how
changed! how altered!-now I must
die: my children too must die; and I
their father must bring that death upon
them. O, that thought lies as heavy
as a mountain on me: it is a thought
most horrible. Go, my son, and cheer
my Selima: I will retire, and, close
to the altar, make myself a grave.
Seth. I will not leave thee, nor shalt
thou make for thyself a grave:-O,
conjure thee, by the mercy of that
Being who has hitherto supported
thee, make not for thyself a grave.
Adam. Abel is buried there, and
there will I be buried too. Would
you wish to see me mouldering before
your eyes?

Terror implore him not to forsake me in the agonies of death.

Seth. O, my beloved father, I will die with thee. Why dost thou leave me, father?

Adam. To adore the power of God.
Eighth Scene.

SETH (solus).

O, inexpressible grief! not to be named by human lips: it will prey on my life till my bones are laid with his. IO thou first and best of fathers-father of the yet unborn; parent of the human race; this day is the day of his death-the day of the death of my father. How soon has it arrived, attended with all its terrors, to ask me, with a warning voice, if in my hear I fear the Almighty. O, I will repait to my father, and, by his side, prostrate myself before the altar. trembling arm shall assist him to dig his grave. O the grave of my father! and thou terrible voice,-" Ere the sun has set behind yon cedar wood!"

Seth. O thou great God, whose judgment is suspended over us! Adam. The terrors of the Almighty

are around me: I must avert my face

from thee, my son. It is a day of terror, What is it that moves yonder-Dost thou not see the rocks tremble, my son?

He approaches! - Dost thou not hear his steps? Dost thou not now behold how violently the hill near our but is agitated! On that hill he stands. Dost thou not behold him in his terrors clad?

Seth. Darkness surrounds me!-my vision is dimmed; but I can bear.

Adam (to Seth). Then hear him and me. (To the Angel of Death) I know thy footsteps well, Messenger of the Judgment! Angel of Death! Destrover!-here am 1.

The Angel of Death. Thus He says, -He who from dust created thee man, ere the sun has set behind yon cedar wood, thou shalt die the death. Many of thy race will die; many will sink into death in peace; but, thou shalt die the death. When I return, and with my presence shake these rocks, that they together fall, then thou shalt die. Thine eye will become dark, and thou shalt not see; but thine ear will hear the thundering roar of the falling rocks, ere the sun has set behind yon cedar wood.

Adam. Tell Him, who from dust created me man, and who has visited me with his judgment, that I will prostrate myself before him, and adore And O, thou Angel of

his power.

SECOND ACT-First Scene.

ADAM. SETH.

his

Now

Adam (who stands leaning on the al tár, close to his grave). It is terrible, my son. Here, indeed, the rose spreads its fragrance, and the cedar lifts its branches on high; but still it is terrible. Here I must sink into corruption: I, who sprang forth from the plastic hand of the Almighty; I, unborn of mortal; I, the first of beings, and Eden's blissful tenant. corruption, with its dread attendants, stands before me. My eye grows dim: my arm trembles: with difficulty inhale the breath of life. I feel the chillmess of death creeping slowly over me: I feel it here-here in my heart--now anxiously throbbing with the last pulse of life. I shall die the death: Ishall not sink into death, as sleep falls on the eyes of the infant. My eye still grows dimmer: come, my son, ere creation, with all its fir forms, is closed upon me, let me once more survey one little past of the glorious carthy material land: open wide the door of my Lut, and let the prospect be towards Eden.

Seth. Yonder lie the mountains of

Eden.

Adam. I cannot see the mountains.

Is the sun wholly covered with clouds,

my son?

Seth. There are many clouds, and heavily they roll; but the sun is not wholly covered.

Adam. Is it far from the cedar wood? but do not tell me; in a short time I will ask thee again.

Seth. Now, by heavy clouds, the sun is obscured; black, as when the tempest rages.

Adam. I see them not; nor, when the sun again emerges, shall I behold it: for,when I once again return to my grave, I shall never leave it. Come, my son, let me rest on thice. Seth. My father! Adam. Ye beautiful plains! ye lofty mountains! ye cool amd shady vallies! ye flowers of the fields, which yield to the foot of the wanderer! ye trees, which, on the mountain's top, penetrate the clouds! ye blissful fields, in which, with joy, I have wandered; in which I inhaled life and health; in which I have been so long and so often happy; in which I have seen all my children,and so many living beings around me! And thou, superior to all, thou Eden-but I cannot speak the bliss I there enjoyed; for now, with the remembrance of that bliss, must my tears be mingled; and, in this solemn hour, with my tears I will not profane it. On this day, from all ye beloved objects, I take my last farewel :-on this day, on which I cease to be a mortal. Yet, ye will not cease to bear the marks of the curse which, with my mortality, was pronounced upon you. I will retire, my son, for I can now scarcely distinguish the river from the plain What will my feelings be, when I shall no longer be able to distinguish the best of my sons? (Aside) he trembles; I must collect myself.(To Seth am fearful that Selima will join us: O, how could I support the grief and melancholy of that tender innocent!

Seth. I can no longer conceal it from you, my father, I have lately seen Selima pass several times anxiously before the hut.

Adam. Tell me, my son, shall I be able to conceal from her the melancholy truth? Sits the paleness of death already on my cheeks? Thou turnest away from me!

Seth. Each word thou speakest

UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XIV.

strikes terror to my soul! Thou art
terribly pale, my father: I did not see
Abel in his death, but I have seen a
youth, who died, ere a few summers
had given strength to his form, and
whose death was concealed
you,
from

Adam. Then shall I, with my Abel,
meet one more of my children? Ah!
they have, perhaps, concealed, both
from thee and me, the death of many.
Did the youth fear the Almighty?
Seth. His soul was good. No fear
pervaded me when he died, for he
died with the smile of an angel: but
I could not support the view of him
when he was dead. But Selima
comes.

Adam. Ah! Sunim, my younger son!-my Sunim is not yet found. Second Scene.

SELIMA. The Former. Selima. Be not angry, my father, that I again trespass against your commands: but hear me, my father. There is a man walking round our but,a man, such as before I have never seen. He says, he comes to Adam: but, when I view him, a ter- rible shivering passes over me. Some men must elsewhere reside, who are not thy sons; for Adam's son is this man not.

Adam, How is this man form'd, Selima ?.

Selima. Tall, with a threatening mien. His eyes are sunk, and wildly they roll about, as if in search of some particular object. He has covered himself with spotted skins; and, in his hand, he bears a heavy knotted club. He seems burnt by the sun, and yet looks pale; but not so pale as thou art, my father.

Adam. Did not the man uncover his forehead?

Selima. Yes, he did expose it; and on it there was something, which I cannot describe; for I trembled as I beheld it it appeared as if it had been scorched by lightning.

Adam. It is Cain! Seth, it is Cain! my death still more bitter. Go, and The Almighty has sent him to make learn if it be he: go, and tell him to betake himself to the woods; that I will not view his face: but, if he be resolved to come, then has God seut him hither, and I have merited it:

2 A

but, first conceal the altar, that he may not view his brother's blood.

Third Scene.

Selima. Oh! my father! what abyss

is that before the altar? Adam. Hast thou never yet beheld a grave, Selima.

Selima. What is a grave, my father? Adam (aside). O, day of terror! Cain comes, and this innocent, be

loved child before me.

Selima. O, speak to me, my father: thou art not angry with me: thou wert wont to call me thy Selima. Adam. Thou art my Selima, much beloved daughter.

my

Selima. But, thou saidst, my father, that Cain was come to make thy death still more bitter:-Oh! I cannot express myself: thou wilt not die, my father?

Adam. Be not so afflicted, my Selima; thou knowest that God has told us, that we are made of dust, and that to dust we shall return. My hairs have now long been grey; e'en they were grey before thou wert born.-O, that Cain may not afflict me too much to-day!

Selima. O! for the sake of thy better sons; for the sake of Abel, of Seth,and Heman; for the sake of the infants whom thou wilt bless, for the first time, this day: for their sakes, O die not, my father!

Adam. Weep not, my dear daughter. Rise, they approach.

Fourth Scene.

CAIN. SETH. The Former. Cain. Art thou Adam? Thou wert not wont to turn pale at the sight of those whom thou hast made miserable. Adam. Spare, at least, that weeping innocent, my Selima.

Cain. Has innocence e'er dwelt upon the earth since Adam was a father?

Adam (to Selima). Leave us, my daughter Seth shall call thee when Cain hath departed.

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then I will answer thine. Who is the man who conducted me hither? Adam. It is my second son, Seth. Cain. I require not thy compassion: it is thy third son. And now I will answer thee: I am come, Adam, to revenge myself on thee. Seth. Wilt thou also murder my father?

Cain. Ere thou wert born, was I deeply sunk in misery: leave Adam and myself together; I will not kill thy father.

Adam. What cause hast thou, Cain, to revenge thyself on me?

Cain. That thou gavest me exist

ence.

Adam. For that reason, my firstborn son?

Cain. Yes; and that I have murdered my brother Abel; that his blood

cries aloud to the throne of the Al

mighty; that among all the children which have been born to thee, I am the most miserable of all that ever will be born to thee: the most wretched, that, burthened with this misery, Í must stalk the earth and find no resting-place; nor even in Heaven shall I find it: therefore I will revenge myself on thee.

Adam. Ere I commanded thee to

shun my presence for ever, often have I answered thy complaints; but never hast thou so related them to me as on this most terrible of all my days.

Cain. Thou hast never answered me them sufficiently; and, if thou this day dost feel how strong and true they are, still that is not the revenge I seek. For years, for many long and dismal years, have I resolved to revenge myself on thee; and my revenge shall be keen, dreadful, and unparalleled :this day will I execute it.

-

Seth. If thy rage dims not thy vision, look, Cain, O look on his grey hairs!

Cain. Be he grey or bald, I am the most wretched of his children, I will revenge myself-revenge myself on him, for to him I owe my existence.

Adam (to Seth). His and my Judge has sent him hither.-What is then thy revenge, Cain?

Cain. I will curse thee.

Adam. That is too much, my son,Cain: curse thy father not: for the sake of that salvation which thou still mayst find, curse Adam not.

Cain. I will curse thee.
Adam. Come then, and I will shew the means to avoid superstition.--

men themselves, for not giving them

thee the place where thou shalt curse ine. Come, this is thy father's grave: this day is the day of my death: it has been announced to me by an angel of death.

Cain. And what altar is that?

Seth. O, thou most unfortunate of men, because thou art the most criminal! that is Abel's altar, and on these stones his blood.

Wherefore if their zeal has been indiscreet, their intention has been good and we may venture to affirm, from the eagerness they shewed in embracing religion and cleaving so close to it under all the disadvantages it appeared to them in, they would have as firmly adhered to true piety had they obtained a clearer light of it.

What should hinder us from reguCain. The rage of Hell rises in me! lating our minds by the faith and That altar, that terrible altar, lies like discipline of Christ and his church? a rock upon me. Where am I? Where If we laid the foundation of philosois Adam? Hear me, Adam: my curse phy and scholastic divinity; should begins: On the day on which thou, we not be as able as the men, in the wilt die, Adam-on the last of thy days, may the agonies of seven thousand dying mortals seize thee: may the image of corruption ——

Adam. It is too much; it is too much, my first born. Now I fully comprehend thee, thou sentence of death, which above was pronounced upon me: I understand it wholly. Cease, O cease, my first-born son!

Cain. Ah! Ah! have I shed my father's blood? Where am I? Who will lead me from this appalling scene -who will lead me that I may find the abyss of Hell? But my father is here! Is it he himself? or doth he appear to me? Avert thy face from me, that I may fly! (He hastes away),

R. H. [To be concluded in our next.]

REPUBLICATION OF

SCARCE TRACTS.

No. II.

WOMAN not inferior to MAN.

progress of our studies, to understand, compare and interpret the holy scriptures, the writings of the fathers and the sacred canons? Might we not qualify our minds and hearts to compose religious works, to preach, to confute novelties, to regulate ourselves and others, to remove their scruples, and to resolve cases of conscience, as well as the most learned casuists living?

Thus far I insist, there is no science or public office in a state, which women are not as much qualified for by nature as the ablest of men. With regard however to divinity, our natural capacity has been restrained by a positive law of God; and therefore we know better than to lay claim to what we could not practise without sacrilegious intrusion. Though, by the bye, let it be observed that the bar which our Divine Saviour has put to our exercising any religious functions, neither bars us from any other public offices, nor proves us unworthy or naturally incapable of exercising even them. That he forbad us those functions proves us naturally apt for them. But why he forbad us, it would be presumptuous to enquire. However PRACTICE sufficiently speaks us if it is lawful to reason at all upon the no less Christian than the men: divine precepts; we may assign a we receive the gospel with reverence reason, which carries its own probabiand humility, and submit to its doc- lity with it and rather redounds to the trines and precepts in a more exem- honour than disrepute of our sex. plary manner than the generality of God undoubtedly knew the general them. I own, some of our sex have tendency of the men to impiety and carried their worship to superstitious irreligion; and therefore why might lengths; but have not many of the he not conting the functious of remen done so too? And yet the latter ligion to that sex, to attract some of are the most culpable: since the igno- them at least to those duties they bave rance in which the former have been such a general apathy for? Especially bred reflects all the reproach on the since the natural propensity of our

CHAPTER VI.
[Continued from p. 104.]

sex to virtue and religion, made it unnecessary to add any of those external helps to his divine grace, in order to win us to what our hearts lead

us to.

If then we set custom and prejudice aside, where would the oddity be to see us dictating sciences from a university chair; since to name but one of a thousand, that foreign young lady, whose extraordinary merit and capacity but a few years ago forced a university in Italy to break through the rules of partiality, custom, and prejudice, in her favour, to confer on her a Doctor's degree, is a living proof that we are as capable, as any of the men, of the highest eminences in the sphere of learning, if we had justice done us.

her; content to see the work already
done to my hand, by that sex itself:
and therefore refer my readers for a
farther account of this true woman
to what the Reverend Mr. Birch says
of her in the History of the Works of
the Learned:* which is so much the
more to be relied on as it comes from
a man; one of that sex which seems
to pique itself with no other degree
of equity, than that of never praising
any of ours beyond their desert. If
the comparison, this candid gentle-
man there makes between the talents
of our sex and his own, should prove
too galling for their innate jealousy;
let the men excuse him at least, and
pacify themselves with the reflection
on the thanks they all owe him for
giving us this fresh instance, in his
own person, of the possibility of find-
ing a man who can throw off passion
and prejudice, for the sake of truth
and honesty.

It is not so much to do justice to my own sex, that I quote this instance, as to favour the men, by shewing that it is not absolutely impossible for them to be sometimes just, without a miracle. Indeed it might require, in all probability, the labours of a wandering Jew, to produce a few more instances of the like equity towards us in that jealous, unBut to find many generous sex. Ladies nothing inferior in merit to the last-mentioned, we need neither the pains of running back to antiquity, nor the expence of a voyage to foreign climes. Our own age and country may boast of more than one Sappho, numbers of Cornelias, and no scarcity If I of Schurmans and Daciers. chose to unite the several excellences of all these illustrious names in one, I might quote an Eliza not more to be envied for the towering superiority of her genius and judgment, than honoured for the use she makes of them. Her early advances in ancient and modern learning in general having raised her above the imitation of the men, as the many excellent virtues, added to her extensive knowledge, have secured her the esteem of the I MUST confess, I cannot find how women; it is no wonder that, while the oddity would be greater, to see a the former are forced to admire her lady with a truncheon in her hand, in spite of prejudice, we are at liberty to do justice to her merit without fearing the suspicion of partiality towards her. However, as her own excellence has extorted her just praise from the mouth of prejudice itself, I shall forbear to characterise

We may easily conclude then, that, if our sex, as it hitherto appears, have all the talents requisite to learn and teach those sciences, which qualify men for power and dignity; they are equally capable of applying their knowledge to practice, in exercising And since, that power and dignity. as we have said, this nation has seen many glorious instances of women, severally qualified to have all public authority centered in them: why may they not be as qualified at least for the subordinate offices of ministers of state, vice-queens, governesses, secretaries, privy-counsellors, and treasurers? Or why may they not, without But this will oddity, be even generals of armies, and admirals of fleets? be more proper to consider separately.

CHAP. VII.

Whether Women are naturally quali fied for military offices, or not.

than with a crown on her head; or
why it should create more surprise, to
Why
see her preside in a council of war,
than in a council of state.
may she not be as capable of heading

For June, 1789.

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