True Words for Brave Men | Page 9

to the eyes, and a tree
to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat,
and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."--GENESIS iii.
1-6.
Here is a lesson for us all. You and I, and all men brought into the
world with us a nature which fell in Adam; and, as it fell before we
were born, it is certain enough to fall, again and again, after we are
born, in this life; ay, and unless we take care, to fall lower and lower,
every day, acting Adam's sin over again, until we surely die. This is
what I mean--What God said to Adam and Eve, He says to every one of
us. And what the devil said to Adam and Eve, he will say to every one
of us.
First. God says to us, "Of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely
eat: but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat, lest
thou die."
Of all the trees of the garden thou mayest freely eat. God grudges you
nothing good for you. He has put you into this good and pleasant world,
where you will find pleasures enough, and comforts enough, to satisfy
you, if you are wise; but there are things which God has forbidden you,
not out of any spite or arbitrariness, but because they are bad for you;
because they will hurt you if you indulge in them, and sooner or later,
kill both body and soul.

Now, many of those wrong things look pleasant enough, and
reasonable enough, as the forbidden fruit did. Pleasant to the eyes and
good for food--and to be desired to make you wise. As people grow up
and go out into life, they are tempted to do many things which their
parents forbid, which the Bible forbids, which the law of the land
forbids, and they do not understand at first why they are forbidden any
more than Adam and Eve understood why they were not to eat of the
forbidden fruit.
Then the devil (who is always trying to slander God to us) whispers to
them, as he did to Eve, "How unreasonable! how hard on you. People
say that this is wrong, and you must not do it, and yet how pleasant it
must be! How much money you might get by it--how much wiser, and
cleverer, and more able to help yourself you would become, if you
went your own way, and did what you like. Surely God is hard on you,
and grudges you pleasure. Never mind--don't be afraid. Surely you can
judge best what is good for you. Surely you know your own business
best. Use your own common sense and do what you like, and what you
think will profit you. Are you to be a slave to old rules which your
parents or the clergyman taught you?"
So says the devil to every young man as he goes out in life. And to
many, alas!--to many, the devil's words sound reasonable enough; they
flatter our fallen nature, they flatter our pride and our self-will, and
make us fancy we are going up hill, and becoming very fine and manly,
and independent and knowing. "Knowing"! How many a young man
have I seen run into sin just that he might be knowing; and say, "Why
should I not see life for myself? Why should I not know the world, and
try what is good, and how I like that, and what is bad too, and how I
like that--and then choose for myself like a man, instead of being kept
in like a baby?"
So he says exactly what Adam and Eve said in their hearts--"I will eat
of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." He says in his heart, too,
just what Solomon the wise said, when he, too, determined to eat of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge.
Ay, young people, who love to see the world, and to choose for

yourselves, read that Book of Ecclesiastes, the saddest book on earth,
and get a golden lesson in every verse of it. See how Solomon
determined to see life, from the top to the bottom of it. How he "gave
his heart to know, seek, and search out by wisdom concerning all things
that are done under heaven. I have seen all the works that are done
under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit," (Eccles.
i. 13).
And then, how he turned round and gave his heart to know mirth, and
madness, and folly, and see whether that was good for him, and, "I said
of laughter, it is mad: and of mirth, what doeth it?"