As we went forward, I begged Elijah to finish that history which he had begun, of the _Assumptions_ or _Translations_; and I said, that he had come, I thought, to that of Saint _John_ the Evangelist. Then said he to me: "Since you have not the patience, to wait till the Apple of Knowledge teach you all these things better than I can, I will even tell you. Know then that God----" At this word, in some way I know not how, the Devil would have his Finger in that pie; or howsoever it came about, so it was that I could not forbear Interrupting him with raillery. "I remember that case," said I: "God heard one day that the Soul of the Evangelist was so loosed from his Body, that he no more kept it in but by shutting his teeth hard; and at that moment the hour when he had foreseen that he should be translated hither was almost past; so having no time to get him a machine made ready for coming, He was constrained to make him suddenly _be_ here, without having time to _bring_ him." During all my discourse Elijah bent upon me such a look, as would have been fit to kill me, had I then been capable of dying from aught but Hunger. "Thou Wretch," said he, and drew back in horror, "thou hast the insolence to rail at Holy Things! Surely thou shouldst not go unpunished, were it not that the All-wise determines to spare thee as a marvellous example of His long-suffering, a witness to the Nations. Get hence, thou Blasphemer, go thou and publish in this little World, and in the other (for thou art predestined to return thither), the unforgetting Hatred that God bears to Atheists." Hardly had he finished this Curse, when he seized me roughly to drag me toward the Gate. When we were arrived beside a great Tree whose branches bent almost to Earth with the burden of their Fruit, "Here," said he, "is that Tree of Knowledge where thou shouldst have got Enlightenment inconceivable, but for thy Infidelity." At that word I feigned to swoon with weakness, and letting my self fall against a low branch I handily filched an Apple from it. And in but a few strides more I was set down outside of that delicious Garden. In that moment, being so violently pressed by Hunger, that I even forgot I was in the grip of the angry Prophet, I drew from my pocket one of those Apples I had filled it with, wherein I buried my teeth as deep as I could. But so it was, that in place of taking one of those Enoch had given me, my hand fell on that very Apple I had plucked from the Tree of Knowledge, which for my misfortune I had not freed of its Rind.]