ng it. He knew neither
good nor evil, for he had not yet had the contact of choice. Knowledge
comes only through experience. In choosing not to obey, choosing to
disobey, he would know evil with a bitter intimacy by choosing it. He
would become acquainted with the good which he had shoved ruthlessly away.

With the opportunity came the temptation: God's opportunity; Satan's
temptation. Satan is ever on the heels of God. Two inclined planes lead
out of every man's path. Two doors open into them side by side. God's door
up, the tempter's door down, and only a door-jamb between. Here the split
hoof can be seen sticking from under the cloak's edge at the very start.
Satan hates the truth. He is afraid of it. Yet he sneaks around the
sheltering corner of what he fears and hates. The sugar coating of his
gall pills he steals from God. The devil bare-faced, standing only on his
own feet, would be instantly booted out at first approach. And right well
he knows it.

A cunning half lie opens the way to a full-fledged lie, but still coupled
with a half-truth. The suggestion that God was harshly prohibiting
something that was needful leads to the further suggestion that He was
arbitrarily, selfishly holding back the highest thing, the very thing He
was supposed to be giving, that is, likeness to Himself. Eve was getting a
course in suggestion. This was the first lesson. The school seems to be in
session still. The whole purpose is to slander God, to misrepresent Him.
That has been Satan's favorite method ever since. God is not good. He
makes cruel prohibitions. He keeps from us what we should have. It is
passing strange how every one of us has had that dust in his eyes. Some of
us might leave the "had" out of that sentence.

See how cunningly the truth and the lie are interwoven by this old
past-master in the sooty art of lying. "Your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as God knowing good and evil." It was true because by the use of
this highest power of choice he would become like God, and through
choosing he would know. It is cunningly implied with a sticky, slimy
cunning that, by not eating, that likeness and knowledge would not come.
That was the lie. The choice either way would bring both this element of
likeness to God in the sovereign power of choice, and the knowledge.

Then came the choice. The step up was a step down: up into the use of his
highest power; down by the use of that power. In that wherein he was most
li