the tree was good
for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Gen. iii, 6.

Now, was the first sin that eternally damned the whole human race a
mere matter of eating from a forbidden tree? It seems so from the
natural import of the language used. "When the woman saw that the tree
was _good for food_ ..." Could a just God inflict such an awful
punishment as orthodox Christianity teaches, not only upon this simple,
ignorant couple, but upon the entire human race for all time and
eternity for such a trifling incident? I trow not. Besides, I have
often thought that if that particular tree had not been specifically
pointed out and forbidden, probably neither Adam nor Eve would ever
have had any desire to eat of it. It is the forbidden that always
draws the strongest.

Let us examine this story closely and see whether the serpent or God
told the truth. Don't be alarmed and accuse me of blasphemy or
sacrilege. We set out in search of truth; let us try to find it. God
is alleged to have said, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for _in the day_ that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die." Gen. ii, 17. But he _did not_ die,
according to the subsequent story, for over nine hundred years
thereafter. The fact that the penalty: "For dust thou art and unto
dust thou shalt return," was pronounced _after_ the transgression, does
not fulfill the statement "in the _day_ thou eatest thereof." But we
shall refer to this again.

The serpent is alleged to have said: "Ye shall not surely die: for God
doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be
opened and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil." Gen. iii, 4, 5.
And verse 7 says: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked." And verse 22 says: "And Jehovah God said,
'Behold, the man is become as _one of us_, to know good and evil.'"
Does not this confirm that what the serpent said was true?

The temptation is very great here to digress far enough to offer a
rational interpretation of this beautiful poetic allegory of the "Fall
of Man." But it is outside the scope and purpose of this work, and I
leave it with the simple question: Was not that which we call the first
sin only the expression of man's natural aspirations onward and upw