III. _The Temptation._ On this point the history is remarkably full and distinct. To those who have given attention to what may be called _the law of temptation_――the way it works and gains its object――little explanation of the narrative is needed.――――We may note that Satan took care not to be recognized as an enemy; that he made his first approaches with subtlest caution and skill, bringing up the case of the prohibited fruit as a question――Is it _indeed so_ that God hath said, Ye shall not eat of every tree? As if he would say――What do you think about this prohibition? Is it quite pleasant to be put under such restraint?――――When Eve recited the words of God’s prohibition and added something more――viz. “neither shall ye touch it,” it is at least supposable that Satan had already sprung in her mind the feeling that the injunction was indeed very stringent, perhaps unreasonably and unkindly so. It is plain that Satan is emboldened and now ventures to strike out squarely against God. Putting his word unqualifiedly against God’s word, “ye shall _not_ surely die,” he became “the father of lies,” “a liar from the beginning,” and threw all the weight of his influence into the scale to break down Eve’s confidence in God’s veracity as well as in his real kindness. Then with Satanic cunning he took advantage of the name given to this forbidden tree to make Eve think that knowledge, great and enviable like that of the gods, would come from eating this fruit. Artfully he charges that God knew this, and sought by the prohibition to debar them from this boon of knowledge so desirable. The gilded bait was swallowed but too soon and too thoughtlessly! Eve had listened; she had more than half believed these lies; she still dallied with the temptation; she looked again at the tree and its fruit; she saw it beautiful and seemingly good for food; and, far beyond this, it appealed to her imagination as giving her that unknown wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods――so she took of it and _ate_!――――Then she brought of it to her husband. Her words to him are not on record. We are left to imagine how her example may have wrought upon him, and sympathy also with her doom if Adam thought of that; how the feeling――I must stand or fall, live or die, with this only human friend I have on earth――may have overcome every scruple. So far as appears he yielded without a word of question, much less of reproof. He yielded――and the awful deed was done! IV. _The Fall and its Immediate Effects._