After God created man and gave him dominion over all the earth He placed him in the beautiful Garden known as E'den. Here the Lord provided for all the temporal requirements of man amid the most splendid beauties of nature, In the scenic glory of E'den there flowed a beautiful river with four parting streams, encompassing a tract in which all manner of fruit-bearing trees flourished. Man was ordered to labor, caring for the Garden and developing its vast resources. Work was divinely appointed, given as a token of dignity, prescribed as a means of sustenance, health, and happiness, and established as the proper order of life upon the earth. Certain moral restrictions were placed around man, and there was one particular tree in the midst of the Garden whose fruit was forbidden to eat. This restriction was not unreasonable, and should not have been irksome; its object was to preserve man in his innocence and happiness, and to prevent a break in the delightful relations between him and his Creator.
The location of the Garden of E'den is unknown, and it is utterly impossible to ascertain its site. Every vestige of it was probably swept away by the deluge about which we shall tell you in a later story.
While it was true that all the animals which God had created were placed under the dominion of man, and found that he found delight and joy in many of them, none was found suitable to become a companion in the propagation of the race. God therefore caused a deep sleep to come upon man, whom He called Ad'am, and took from his side a rib from which He made the woman Eve. She was blood of his blood and bone of his bone, and nature fully prepared to become a help-mate, the mother of the race. Between them there was to be happy companionship, moral sympathy, community of earthly enjoyments, and perfect conjugal affection.
It was there in the Garden of E'den, during the period of man's innocence and moral purity, that God established the Holy ordinance of marriage, and gave the command for the propagation of the race. To Ad'am, Eve was given by God as a wife, "The twain to become one flesh." She was to be protected, nourished, loved by Ad'am, and to be his companion in intellectual, moral, economic, and moral progress. She was placed under the same moral restrictions as Ad'am, enjoyed the same spiritual intimacy with God, and was equal in every aspect except physical prowess, and in her subordinate position in the marriage relationship. The same laws of conjugal faithfulness and moral conduct applied to both alike, and any violation of moral uprightness on the part of either was subject to the same punishment.
For a time Ad'am and Eve lived very happily together amid the flowers and fruits and lovely scenery of nature in the Garden prepared for them, having all that was needful for their comfort and happiness in life. There were frequent hours of intimate communion with God, with no taint of impurity upon either the man or his wife.
One day, however, as Eve was enjoying the delights of her surroundings and the fruits of the Garden, temptation came to her. The fallen angel sa'tan, an enemy of God and of all that is right and Holy, approached her in the form of a serpent and questioned her about the restrictions which God had placed upon concerning the fruit of the tree in the midst of the Garden. When Eve told sa'tan that the penalty of death had been placed against eating the fruit of this tree, he naively suggested that God had lied in this matter. He then declared that not only would she not die if she ate the fruit, but she would become as God.
Through craftiness and cunning words sa"tan projected into Eve's heart a spirit of doubt and unbelief, and thus laid the foundation for her disobedience to God which soon followed.
By this subtility and alluring false promises sa"tan engendered in the heart of Eve a feeling of curiosity, a state of dissatisfaction with the purity and happiness which she then enjoyed, and such resentment against the restrictions which God had placed upon her, that she was overcome with an inordinate desire to eat of the forbidden fruit. Led on by unbelief, curiosity, and rebellion against restraint, she ate of the fruit and gave some of it to her husband, who also disobeyed God in eating it.
