_HOW SIN BEGAN AND THE FLOOD CAME._ FIRST READING. "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."--_Gen. 3:13._ LAST Sunday you heard how God made the world, and put a man and woman to live in it. The man was named Adam; the woman was named Eve. God gave them a beautiful garden to live in, full of trees and flowers; and they had no pain, no trouble, nothing to vex them. Only one thing God told them: there was one tree whose fruit they must not eat. They might eat the fruit of all the other trees, but not of that one. As long as they obeyed, all was well and happy with them; but if they ate it they would die. But a bad spirit came and took the shape of the serpent, and talked to Eve. He told her a wicked lie--he told her that to eat the fruit would make her wise, and would not make her die. And Eve listened, and did eat. And she gave Adam, and he also ate; and so they took the bad spirit for their master instead of the good God. Then God was angry with them, and put them out of the garden, and let them be weak and sickly, and die at last. It was a sad thing for us. For if they had been good and obeyed God, and not the bad spirit, it would have been easy for us to be good, and we would not have the devil tempting us to do wrong: we would never have known pain or sorrow. But God pitied Adam and Eve; and he promised them that the Seed--that is, the Son--of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and set them and their children free. [Illustration: ADAM AND EVE DRIVEN OUT OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN.--Gen. 3:23, 24.] Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, set us free when He died on the cross and rose again; and now we belong to Him, and not to the bad spirit. Only we must try and ask Him to help us not to do what is wrong, as Eve did, or we shall not keep free from the power of the enemy. QUESTIONS. 1. Who was the first man? 2. Who was the first woman? 3. Where did God put them? 4. What was the one thing they might not do? 5. What was to happen if they ate of that fruit? 6. Who came and spoke to Eve? 7. What shape did the bad spirit take? 8. What did he tell Eve? 9. What did she do? 10. Whom did she make her master? 11. What was done to punish her? 12. What sad things did the bad spirit bring on her? 13. Who came to set us free from the bad spirit? SECOND READING. "And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth."--_Gen. 6:17._ THE Lesson this morning told the sad history of how Adam and Eve did the very thing that God forbade; so that He drove them out of the Garden of Eden, and sin and death came into the world. [Illustration: AFTER THE BANISHMENT FROM EDEN.--Gen. 3:19.]