This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 Excerpt: ...swallowing an antidote have saved their lives. Alas no You can never counteract the serpent's deadly sting, nor have you the power to destroy the sinful desires of the world, the flesh and the Devil, with which every human being is possessed. Nothing but the grace of God can do this. Christ alone can bruise the serpent's head. All that man can do with the help of God's Holy Spirit, is to bruise his heel. St. John warns us of this. In his First Epistle he addresses us as little children, iii. 7, and shows us that, by being righteous alone can we bruise the serpent's heel. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the Devil, but he only acts when we do our part; for it does not say that Christ will bruise his head unless we bruise his heel; here is faith and works. But if the works of tho patriarchs, who had a living faith was imperfect, how can any pope or prelate in these days be infallible? For the first revelation after the fall Christ appeared to man as an angel, and talked with him, and this was not enough to prevent the world from growing gradually more and more wicked. In proof of this assertion, look at the world at the time of the flood. To rest on the seventh day seems to have been the principal command, and, at that time there was but one righteous man found on the earth, who was Noah, who God saved with his family in an ark, a word of three letters, which was really the first Church of God on earth. Noah's first act after the flood was to build an altar and offer a sacrifice to God, which showed his faith in a coming Saviour, for which faith he was saved when all the world was drowned; but, though God accepted the offering, "he must have seen some imperfection in it, for God said, "I will not curse the ground any more, for...