are cheats. Its narrow limits belittle its gratifications, and hedge about its achievements with thorns. Mortal mind accepts the crude and material conception of life and joy; but the true idea is gained from the immortal side. Through toil, struggle, and sorrow, what do mortals attain? They give up their belief in perishable life and happiness; and step by step they press forward towards the Life, — yea, the Truth of all things, — until the mortal and material returns to dust, and the grand verity of being is won on a spiritual basis.
Genesis iii. 22-24. And the Lord God said: “Behold, the man has become as one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever.” Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims, and a flamingsword which turned every way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life.
A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis evil has no local habitation or name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Error excludes itself from harmony. Sin is its own punishment. Truth guards the gateway to harmony. Error tills its own soil, and buries itself in the ground.
No one can reasonably doubt that the purpose of this allegory — this second account in Genesis — is to depict the falsity of error, and its effects. Subsequent Bible revelation is coördinate with the Science of Creation, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. Inspired
