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Patriarchs and Prophets
him.” Among all the creatures that God had made on the earth, there
was not one equal to man. And God said, “It is not good that the man
should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Man was
not made to dwell in solitude; he was to be a social being. Without
companionship the beautiful scenes and delightful employments of
Eden would have failed to yield perfect happiness. Even communion
with angels could not have satisfied his desire for sympathy and com-
panionship. There was none of the same nature to love and to be
loved.
God Himself gave Adam a companion. He provided “an help meet
for him”—a helper corresponding to him—one who was fitted to be
his companion, and who could be one with him in love and sympathy.
Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying
that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under
his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved
and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh
of his flesh, she was his second self, showing the close union and
the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. “For no
man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it.”
Ephesians 5:29
. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one.”
God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for
its originator the Creator of the universe. “Marriage is honorable”
(
Hebrews 13:4
); it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it
is one of the two institutions that, after the Fall, Adam brought with
him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are
recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards
the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs,
it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.
“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there
He put the man whom He had formed.” Everything that God had
made was the perfection of beauty, and nothing seemed wanting that
could contribute to the happiness of the holy pair; yet the Creator gave
[47]
them still another token of His love, by preparing a garden especially
for their home. In this garden were trees of every variety, many of
them laden with fragrant and delicious fruit. There were lovely vines,
growing upright, yet presenting a most graceful appearance, with their
branches drooping under their load of tempting fruit of the richest