a term principally employed to signify the garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were placed immediately upon their creation.

There have been many speculations as to the situation of the terrestrial paradise. It has been placed in the third heaven, in the orb of the moon, in the moon itself, in the middle region of the air, above the earth, under the earth, in the site occupied by the Caspian Sea, and under the arctic pole. The learned Huet places it upon the river formed by the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, now called the River of the Arabs, between this junction and the division made by the same river before it falls into the Persian Gulf. Other geographers have placed it in Armenia, between the sources of the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Araxes, and the Phasis, which they suppose to be the four rivers described by Moses. But concerning the exact place we must necessarily be very uncertain, if indeed it can be thought at all to exist at present, considering the many changes which have taken place on the surface of the earth since the creation.

"Learned men," says Mr Miln, in his Physico-Theological Lectures, "have laboured to find out the situation of Paradise, which seems to be but a vague and uncertain inquiry; for the Mosaic description of it will not suit any place on the present globe. He mentions two rivers in its vicinity, viz. Pison and Gihon, of which no vestiges can now be found. The other two still remain, viz. the Hiddekel, supposed to be the Tigris, and the Euphrates, whose streams unite together at a considerable distance above the Persian Gulf. This gulf is eastward both of the land of Midian and the wilderness of Sinai, in one of which places Moses wrote his history. But since the formation of this earth, it has undergone great changes from earthquakes, inundations, and many other causes. The garden, however, seems to have been a peninsula, for the way or entrance into it is afterwards mentioned. We are told that a 'river went out of it,' which, according to some, should be rendered 'ran on the outside of it,' and thus gave it the form of a horse-shoe; for had the Euphrates run through the middle of the garden, one half of it would have been useless to Adam, without a bridge or boat wherewith to have crossed it."

Christians, we presume, need not be told, that, however curious or amusing this inquiry may be, the determination of the point at issue is of no importance, since we are all well assured that the celestial paradise is that place of pure and refined delight in which the souls of the blessed enjoy everlasting happiness.