Ere sunset leaves the world, and sinks behind The illumined ocean, let me muse awhile.
'Twas in a garden that that hideous thing, Sin, first was born accurst, and now all through The wide wide universe it ranges fierce. Where man has placed his foot its trace is seen. The serpent's slimy trail is everywhere, Disfiguring, polluting, and destroying, Death following in its track inseparably.
But oh! my soul be humbled, yet rejoice;-- It was, too, in a garden that the great, The only all-sufficient, all-atoning Propitiatory sacrifice for sin Commenced its consummation, when the Man Christ Jesus swat for thee great drops of blood, (Even he, the Second Person of the Godhead,) And prayed in agony that the cup might pass, If so his Father willed; but none on earth Or yet in Heaven could drink it, none save Him; And when the sacrifice was all complete On Calvary, and satisfied was Justice, Mercy and Hope held out their hands to man, And, in Christ's name, showed him redemption's way. The shame and misery that Adam felt In Eden's garden, when the first great sin Was challenged, was as nothing to compare With the deep agony which on that night,-- That dreadful night in which he was betrayed,-- Our Surety felt, when in Gethsemane He took upon himself to pay the full Ransom and penalty of that first sin Which Adam sinned, and all his race in him.
Of that first sin did Adam put the blame On Eve, "the woman whom thou gavest me." Eve on the serpent shifted it, and proud Was he that he had circumvented both, Doomed on his womb to crawl in dust, and bruised His head by woman's seed, short-lived his pride.-- Christ took upon Himself the sin and all Its anguish, nor like Adam vainly strove To shift it to another, knowing well No other could redeem it but Himself. Sinless, a sacrifice for sin, that sin Might from the souls of men be washed away. 'Twas for that sin, and its infeftments wide That Jesus died, that its entail cut off Might be from Adam and his lineage, far As generations yet to come extend, And man restored to his lost paradise. No flaming sword waves at its portals now, Entrance to bar to the redeemed on earth; No angels guard the gates to keep them shut, But open ever are they to the elect, And there bright angels stand, with joy To welcome all who come in Christ's name in.