d, or does the desire to pry into the
future, exercise an undue influence upon my heart and imagination?" If
so, your ruin has commenced, and a speedy return to God is your only
door of escape.

4. Deception was the result. "And the woman saw the tree was good for
food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to
be desired to make her wise; and she took of its fruit and ate, and
gave also to her husband and he ate." Sight deceived, desire allured,
and action born of a delusive faith destroyed her happiness. The
process of temptation culminated in deception. This is the end ever
kept in view by Satan. Every individual that refuses to be ruled
absolutely by God, in little or great affairs, may know of a truth
that the end is deception, and the consequent ruin is sure to follow.
There is no exception to the rule. Paul felt this when he wrote the
church in Corinth, concerning his interest in them, saying, "For I am
jealous over you with a godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;" "But I
fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, by his subtlety,
so your minds should be corrupted from your simplicity toward Christ."
Many claim that error is not mischievous while truth is left free to
combat. Error poisons the mind, and so produces disease, and bars out
truth, which carries health to the mind and blesses the soul.

Eve knew the law, for she quotes it word by word. She deliberated as
to obeying it. Here she made her first mistake. A woman cannot do
this. The moment a woman hesitates in regard to discharging the duties
she owes to herself or to God she falls. She seems to be provided
with an almost self-acting nature. It is natural for her to protect
herself. She revolts against her higher self when she hesitates. Her
intuitions, allied to a sensitive nature, unite in defending against
evil. Had Eve said, "I do not need to sin to secure the development of
my higher nature; the Creator knows my wants much better than one who
seeks to be my destroyer," she would have been saved. Faith in God
would have been a sure defence against the tempter's wiles.

But she deliberated, yielded, and fell, and the world is still full of
the resounding echoes of that fall. The race fell with her. That fact
teaches its lesson. Some one falls with every ruined soul. We lift
up or drag down those associated with us. "For none of us liveth to
himsel