Yet again:  As God’s permission of Adam’s fall gave all his posterity a thousand opportunities of suffering, and thereby of exercising all those passive graces which increase both their holiness and happiness, so it gives them opportunities of doing good in numberless instances, of exercising themselves in various good works, which otherwise could have had no being.  And what exertions of benevolence, of compassion, of godlike mercy, had then been totally prevented!  Who could then have said to the lover of men,

  Thy mind throughout my life be shown,
    While listening to the wretches’ cry,
  The widow’s or the orphan’s groan;
    On mercy’s wings I swiftly fly
  The poor and needy to relieve;
    Myself, my all, for them to give?

It is the just observation of a benevolent man,

  —­All worldly joys are less,
  Than that one joy of doing kindnesses.

Surely in keeping this commandment, if no other, there is great reward.  “As we have time, let us do good unto all men;” good of every kind and in every degree.  Accordingly the more good we do (other circumstances being equal), the happier we shall be.  The more we deal our bread to the hungry, and cover the naked with garments; the more we relieve the stranger, and visit them that are sick or in prison; the more kind offices we do to those that groan under the various evils of human life; the more comfort we receive even in the present world; the greater the recompense we have in our own bosom.

To sum up what has been said under this head:  As the more holy we are upon earth, the more happy we must be (seeing there is an inseparable connection between holiness and happiness); as the more good we do to others, the more of present reward rebounds into our own bosom:  even as our sufferings for God lead us to rejoice in Him “with joy unspeakable and full of glory”; therefore, the fall of Adam, first, by giving us an opportunity of being far more holy; secondly, by giving us the occasions of doing innumerable good works, which otherwise could not have been done; and, thirdly, by putting it into our power to suffer for God, whereby “the spirit of glory and of God rests upon us”:  may be of such advantage to the children of men, even in the present life, as they will not thoroughly comprehend till they attain life everlasting.

It is then we shall be enabled fully to comprehend not only the advantages which accrue at the present time to the sons of men by the fall of their first parent, but the infinitely greater advantages which they may reap from it in eternity.  In order to form some conception of this, we may remember the observation of the apostle, “As one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead.”  The most glorious stars will undoubtedly be those who are the most holy; who bear most of that image of God wherein they were created.  The next in glory to these will be those who have