"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."--_Gen. 3:13._
LAST Sunday you heard how God made the world, and put a man and woman
to live in it. The man was named Adam; the woman was named Eve. God
gave them a beautiful garden to live in, full of trees and flowers; and
they had no pain, no trouble, nothing to vex them. Only one thing God
told them: there was one tree whose fruit they must not eat. They might
eat the fruit of all the other trees, but not of that one. As long as
they obeyed, all was well and happy with them; but if they ate it they
would die. But a bad spirit came and took the shape of the serpent,
and talked to Eve. He told her a wicked lie--he told her that to eat
the fruit would make her wise, and would not make her die. And Eve
listened, and did eat. And she gave Adam, and he also ate; and so they
took the bad spirit for their master instead of the good God. Then God
was angry with them, and put them out of the garden, and let them be
weak and sickly, and die at last.
It was a sad thing for us. For if they had been good and obeyed God,
and not the bad spirit, it would have been easy for us to be good, and
we would not have the devil tempting us to do wrong: we would never
have known pain or sorrow. But God pitied Adam and Eve; and he promised
them that the Seed--that is, the Son--of the woman should bruise the
serpent's head, and set them and their children free.
[Illustration: ADAM AND EVE DRIVEN OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.--Gen.
3:23, 24.]
Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, set us free when He
died on the cross and rose again; and now we belong to Him, and not to
the bad spirit. Only we must try and ask Him to help us not to do what
is wrong, as Eve did, or we shall not keep free from the power of the
enemy.