we can imagine it
possible that in the ninth century B.C., an account could have been
composed, under some supernatural influence, in the terms of modern
thought, it would have had to wait nearly three thousand years before it
became intelligible, and then, in a few decades, or centuries at most, it
would in all probability have become once more incomprehensible or, if
not that, then at least hopelessly behind the times.

The form of a story, as in the case of our Lord's parables, alone ensures
that truth thus conveyed shall be intelligible to all men at all times.
To object to the form, to scoff at or deride it, is as unintelligent as
it would be, for example, to disparage the sublime teaching of the
parable of the Prodigal Son on the ground that we have no evidence for
the historical truth of the incidents.

Moreover, when we place this and the similar stories we find in the early
chapters of Genesis side by side with the Babylonian myths with which
they stand in some sort of historical relationship, we can trace in the
lofty moral and spiritual teachings of the former, as contrasted with the
grotesque and polytheistic representations of the latter, the veritable
action of the Spirit of God upon the minds of men. Modern research has,
in fact, raised the doctrine of inspiration from a vague and conventional
belief to the level of an ascertained fact, evidenced by observation.
Just as a scientific man can watch his facts under his microscope or in
his test tubes, so such comparison as has been suggested, between Genesis
and the cuneiform tablets, enables us to watch the very fact, to detect
the Divine Spirit at work, not superseding, but illuminating and
uplifting the natural faculties of the sacred writers. But we now turn
to the spiritual teaching enshrined in this particular story.

(i) First, we have the fundamental truth that man is made capable of
hearing the Divine Voice. Not once in the distant past, but to-day, and
day by day, the Voice of God is heard speaking within the depths of
consciousness as clearly and as decisively as of old it sounded among the
trees of the garden.

(ii) But, secondly, other voices make themselves heard by us, and woe to
us if we listen to them.

There is the voice which bids us gratify our animal appetite. The woman
"saw that the tree was good for food." I am conscious of the strength of
bodily desires. Let me seek nothing, from moment to moment, but the
satisfaction of