the "tree of life." We are no doubt
tempted to think that these terms may be symbolic; but a more careful
reflection, and a deliberate rejection of the _influence of present
experiences_, may lead us to accept the narrative more literally. Even
now, we are not unfamiliar with the ideas of medicinal virtues in plants
and fruits. I see nothing impossible in the idea that God may have been
pleased to impart such virtue to the fruit of a tree standing in the
midst of the Garden, that physical health, immunity from all decay, and
constant restoration, should have been the result of eating the fruit;
and the eating of this fruit, we know, was freely permitted. The late
Archbishop Whately suggested, and I think with great probability, that
the longevity of the earliest generations of the Adamic race may have
been due to the beneficial effects of the eating of this fruit, which
only gradually died out. Just as we know at the present time, that
peculiarities introduced into human families, often survive from father
to son, till they gradually die out after many generations.

Again, as regards the "forbidden tree," it will not seem impossible,
that as a simple _test of obedience_ in a very primitive state, the rule
of abstinence from a particular fruit may have been literally enjoined,
and that the consequence of the moral act of _disobedience_ (rather
than the physical effect of the fruit eaten) should have been the
knowledge of evil, the first sensation of shame, terror, angry
dissension, and, worst of all, the alienation from God the source of all
good, which followed.

All such considerations of the reality of the history must gain greatly
in strength, if we can demonstrate that the Garden of Eden, the scene of
the temptation, the place where the trees that were the vehicles of such
consequences to the occupants of the garden, stood, had a real existence
and geographical site. Now I need hardly remark that the Mosaic
narrative unquestionably _professes_ a geographical exactness and a
literal existence of the garden, as no fabled locality--no Utopia or
garden of the Hesperides. I need only refer to the _data_ afforded to us
by Gen. ii. 8-14.

The Lord, it is said, planted a garden in Eden: it was "eastward;" but
that does not directly indicate its site. From Gen. iv. 16, we also
learn that the land of Nod where Cain dwelt (after the murder of Abel)
was on the east of Eden.

A river went out and watered the garden. After pa