was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise_, she took of the fruit, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Thus the fell counsels of the Tempter were accomplished. Through want of faith in God’s word, through a longing for independence, through a vain desire to become gods unto themselves, our first parents were beguiled into sin, and when _their eyes were opened_, instead of greater happiness they now experienced the strange and hitherto unknown consciousness of shame, and degradation, and unmeetness for God’s presence (Gen. iii. 1–7). Brief and summary as is the information here given us respecting the enigma of enigmas, the origin of Evil, it is yet of unspeakable importance. For it teaches us that Sin is not a part of man’s nature, but _the fault and corruption_[3] of it, that it did not spring from his nature by any inevitable necessity, but in consequence of his yielding to the seductions of a powerful and malignant Foe. He did not, like his Tempter, choose sin for its own sake, but was _beguiled_ into it. Hence, though he became liable to all the penal consequences of his disobedience, though his being was _poisoned_ with sin, yet it was not _converted_ into sin. He did not lose all remembrance of his former state of purity and innocence; the shame which overwhelmed him and made him hide himself from the presence of God, testified to his consciousness of transgression, and in this sense of guilt lay the possibility of his restoration[4].