ke God in power, man became most unlike God in character. First the
woman chose: then the man. Satan subtly begins his attack upon the woman.
Because she was the weaker? Certainly not. Because she was the stronger.
Not the leader in action, but the stronger in influence. He is the leader
in action: she in influence. The greater includes the less. Satan is a
master strategist, bold in his cunning. If the citadel can be gotten, all
is won. If he _could_ get the woman he _would_ get the man. She includes
him. She who was included in him now includes him. The last has become
first.

She was deceived. He was not deceived. The woman chose unwarily for the
supposed good. The man chose with open eyes for the woman's sake. Could
the word gallantry be used? Was it supposed friendship? He would not
abandon her? Yet he proved _not her friend_ that day, in stepping down to
this new low level. Man's habit of giving smoothly spoken words to woman,
while shying sharp-edged stones at her, should in all honesty be stopped.
Man can throw no stones at woman. If the woman failed God that day, the
man failed both God and the woman. If it be true that through her came the
beginning of the world's sin, through her, too, be it gratefully and
reverently remembered, came that which was far greater--the world's
Saviour.

The choice was made. The act was done. Tremendous act! Bring your
microscope and peer with awe into that single act. No fathoming line can
sound its depth. No measuring rod its height nor breadth. No thought can
pierce its intensity. That reaching arm went around a world. Millenniums
in a moment. A million miles in a step. An ocean in a drop. Volumes in a
word. A race in a woman. A hell of suffering in an act. The depths of woe
in a glance. The first chapter of Romans in Genesis three, six. Sharpest
pain in softest touch. God mistrusted--distrusted. Satan embraced. Sin's
door open. Eden's gate shut.

Mark keenly the immediate result that came with that intense rapidity
possible only to mental powers. At once they were both conscious of
something that had not entered their thoughts before. To the pure all
things are pure. To the imagination hurt by breaking away from God, the
purest things can bring up suggestions directly opposite. Through the open
door of disobedience came with lightning swiftness the suggestion of
using a pure, holy function of the body in a way and for a purpose not
intended. Making an end of that which was m