and there He put the man whom He had formed. It is the Lord God the Saviour who gives wisdom to man, and in mercy surrounds him with all kinds of mental joys and pleasures, as Adam was surrounded, in his state of innocence, by the trees of the garden. The garden is said to be eastward in Eden, to instruct us that all intelligence signified by the garden, is from Love or Eden, and that the happy intelligences look to the east, or to the Lord, whence all that is good and true proceed.
O how tranquil and blessed is the celestial state! it is a dwelling in the garden of God! Here are no worldly anxieties, no perplexing cares; all are nourished by the Shepherd of Israel, and nothing is heard but joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the voice of melody. (Isa. li. 3.) Shun, O Christian, as a deadly poison, all evils as sins against God, and thou shalt be sure to gain an entrance into the abodes of the blessed, "to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." (Rev. ii. 7.)
January Twenty-second.
USES OF AFFLICTION.
"He regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry."—Psalm cvi. 44.
SOLOMON, the reputed wise man, has said, that "there is a time for all things, and to every purpose under the heavens," (Eccles. iii. 1.). If there be a time for all things, there must be a use for all things, as nothing useless can possibly exist in the creation of God. There are afflictions of mind and afflictions of body, and as these are most uncongenial
