The Garden of Eden 2

The Garden of Eden 2

Now, God had showed Adam two trees of the Garden. One was a Tree of

Life: whoever ate of the fruit of it would live forever. The other was a

Tree of Knowledge: whoever ate of the fruit of it would know both good

and evil. And God had said that these trees must not be touched. But one

time, as Mother Eve was walking in the pleasant shadow of the Tree of

Knowledge, she saw a serpent. This, you understand, was long ago, when

strange things happened as they do in fairy stories. All the animals

were friendly and knew how to talk. So Eve was not afraid, nor was she

surprised to hear the serpent speak.

 

“Eve,” he said, coiling his glittering tail about the tree, “this is

good fruit; why do you never taste it?”

 

“Serpent,” said Eve, “this is forbidden fruit. God has told us not to

touch it.”

 

“But see,” replied the serpent, winking his bright eyes, “see how it

shines among the leaves. Surely such fair fruit can do no harm. Indeed,

a little taste will make you the wisest woman in the world!”

 

And foolish Eve listened and was tempted. She looked again at the bright

and luscious fruit, and took of it and ate it, and gave to Adam and he

ate it.

 

Then trouble came. That is what always follows disobedience. Adam and

Eve began to consider what they had done, and they were sorry and

afraid. Now, every day, in the Garden of Eden, God used to come, as the

evening shadows lengthened, and walk among the trees in the cool of the

twilight; but that day, Adam and Eve hid themselves. So God called,

“Adam, Eve, where are you? Why do you hide yourselves? Have you eaten of

the fruit of the forbidden tree?”

 

And Adam came and said, “It was Eve’s fault: she gave it to me.” And Eve

said, “It was the serpent’s fault: he tempted me.” As for the serpent,

there was nobody else upon whom he could cast the blame.

 

So God said that the serpent and all serpents after him should crawl

upon the ground. He sent Adam and Eve out of the garden, and, at the

gate, to keep them from coming back, he set angels with flaming swords.

Thus the good world was spoiled. Outside the garden gate, the earth was

thick with briers and brambles.

 

 

 

 

II

 

NOAH’S ARK

 

 

And then, what happened? After Adam and Eve had disobeyed God, and had

been driven out of the Garden of Eden into the world of briers and

brambles, then what happened? “Tell us,” cried the children, “another

story of the beginning of the world.” And their fathers and mothers, in

answer, told what their grandfathers and grandmothers had told them.

 

The first disobedience was like the first little flame which is touched

to a heap of dry wood. It grew and grew. Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain

and Abel. Cain became a farmer, and Abel became a shepherd. One time

they brought each an offering to give to God. Cain brought fruit from

his farm, and Abel brought lambs from his flock. But God looked at their

hearts, and He was pleased with Abel’s offering, but Cain’s He would not

take. And Cain was very angry with God and with his brother. Then one

day when the two brothers were in the field together, Cain quarreled

with Abel and struck him and killed him.

 

And God said, “Where is Abel thy brother?”

 

And Cain said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 

Thus he sinned both in word and in deed; and God had to send him away

into the wild deserts. All this was very terrible for Adam and Eve. Thus

while briers and brambles grew in the ground, evil and sorrow grew in

the hearts of men.

 

Now, after many years, the men and women and even the little children

were all so bad that there was no way to make them better. The only

thing to do was to destroy them, and begin the world all over again. But

there was one good family. Noah and his wife, and their three sons,

Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives, minded what God told them. So

God said to Noah, “I will destroy all these wicked people, but I will

save you and yours. I will wash the whole earth clean with a great

flood. You must make a boat, and you and your wife, and your sons and

their wives must get into it. And you must take all the animals with

you, two of every kind, with which to start the world again after the

flood is over.”

 

Noah began, therefore, to build a boat. In the middle of a wide field,

he and his sons brought beams and boards together and set to work. The

boat was like a box, and it was called the Ark, because that means a

box. It had a big door in the side, and all around, near the top, ran a

line of windows. And inside all the cracks were filled with pitch, to

keep the water out.

 

Before long, the neighbors came, and said, “What are you doing, Noah?”

 

And Noah answered, “I am building a boat.”

 

“But,” said the neighbors, “this is no place for a boat. A boat is of no

use without water. Who ever heard of a boat in the middle of a meadow?”

 

But Noah said, “Here, where we stand, in this dry field, the water shall

be as deep as the highest hills are high.” Then Noah told them of the

coming flood, and tried to get them to stop their bad ways, that they

might live, and not be drowned. But the neighbors only laughed at Noah,

and said he must be crazy to build a boat on dry land, and so they went

back to their wicked lives. Sometimes, when it rained, they thought of

Noah, but the rain cleared away, and they laughed again, and were worse

than ever.

 

At last, the great day came, with clouds and thunder. Early that

morning, the animals began to come from near and far, lions and bears,

and sheep and oxen, camels and elephants, and cats and dogs, two by two

they jumped and crawled and ran and flew into the Ark. When they were

all in, Noah and his wife, and Shem, Ham, and Japheth and

 

[Illustration: THE ARK RESTS ON THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN]

 

their wives went in after them, and the door was shut. And when the door

was shut, the rain came.

 

First, it rained as if a little brook were tumbling down out of the sky,

and then the brook changed into a river, and the river into a pond, and

the pond into a lake, and the lake into an ocean, and all the air was

full of water as the sea is full of waves. The water filled the streets

of towns, and crept into the doors of houses, and climbed step after

step upstairs, till all the roofs were covered. By and by, nothing was

to be seen in all the earth but the Ark floating on the flood. And when

Noah looked out of the window of the Ark, the world appeared as it did

in the beginning of beginnings, a wide waste of water. And still it

rained, and rained.

 

At last, after days and days, nobody knows how long, the rain ceased,

and the sun came out, and the flood began to go down. And one day, there

was a grinding noise as if the Ark had touched the ground, and Noah

looked, and, behold, the Ark had landed on the top of a mountain, which

was like a little island in the deep sea. By and by, Noah sent out a

dove, and the dove flew here and there and found no rest for the sole of

her foot, and so came back. And again, after a week, Noah sent the dove

a second time, and now she brought back a leaf plucked from an olive

tree. Thus Noah knew that the water had gone down below the treetops.

Once more he sent the dove, and this time she found a place to make a

nest.

 

Then Noah opened the wide door of the Ark, and all the world was green

and fresh and shining in the sun. And there on the top of the mountain,

which is called Ararat, Noah and his family thanked God for their

deliverance, and all the beasts and birds, each in his own way, said

Amen. And across the sky was a gleaming rainbow, from one hill to

another over the glistening earth. And God said to Noah, “Behold the

bow! It is the sign of my promise that I will never again destroy the

earth. When the rain falls and men begin to be afraid, then shall the

sun shine through the wet clouds, and the bow shall be painted in the

sky.” Thus, with the prayers of Noah and with the promise of God, the

life of man began anew.

 

 

 

 

III

 

THE ADVENTURES OF LOT

 

 

Once upon a time, when the world was still young, there was a lad named

Lot. His father and mother were dead, and he lived with his Uncle

Abraham and his Aunt Sarah.

 

In the place where Lot lived, the people believed that the moon was God.

They looked up into the sky at night, and saw the shining moon, and it

seemed to them the most beautiful and most wonderful sight in the world,

and they said their prayers to it. But Abraham knew better than that. He

knew that God who made the earth made the moon also. Because Abraham

would not go to the moon-church, his neighbors disliked him. So at last

he made up his mind to move away. One night, in a dream, he heard the

voice of God, and God told him to go. And, the next day, he took Sarah

and Lot, and started out to find a better place to live in. Thus Lot got

his first look at the wide world.

 

Abraham and Sarah and Lot rode on the backs of camels, but they had to

go very slowly because they took with them all their sheep and cows. So

they journeyed and they journeyed till by and by they came to a great

river, called the Euphrates. And then they journeyed and they journeyed

till by and by they came to another river, called the Jordan, in a deep

valley. And there, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea,--the

place is on the map,--they found a pleasant land which they liked much.

On account of their flocks and herds they could not settle down and stay

long in one place, so they wandered here and there over the green

country, stopping to rest now under a spreading oak, and now in the shadow of a great rock; and they slept in tents.