Creation
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out the power to transgress His law; He might have withheld the hand
of Adam from touching the forbidden fruit; but in that case man would
have been, not a free moral agent, but a mere automaton. Without
freedom of choice, his obedience would not have been voluntary, but
forced. There could have been no development of character. Such a
course would have been contrary to God’s plan in dealing with the
inhabitants of other worlds. It would have been unworthy of man as
an intelligent being, and would have sustained Satan’s charge of God’s
arbitrary rule.
God made man upright; He gave him noble traits of character, with
no bias toward evil. He endowed him with high intellectual powers,
and presented before him the strongest possible inducements to be true
to his allegiance. Obedience, perfect and perpetual, was the condition
of eternal happiness. On this condition he was to have access to the
tree of life.
The home of our first parents was to be a pattern for other homes
as their children should go forth to occupy the earth. That home,
beautified by the hand of God Himself, was not a gorgeous palace.
Men, in their pride, delight in magnificent and costly edifices and glory
in the works of their own hands; but God placed Adam in a garden.
This was his dwelling. The blue heavens were its dome; the earth,
with its delicate flowers and carpet of living green, was its floor; and
the leafy branches of the goodly trees were its canopy. Its walls were
hung with the most magnificent adornings—the handiwork of the great
Master Artist. In the surroundings of the holy pair was a lesson for all
time—that true happiness is found, not in the indulgence of pride and
luxury, but in communion with God through His created works. If men
would give less attention to the artificial, and would cultivate greater
simplicity, they would come far nearer to answering the purpose of
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God in their creation. Pride and ambition are never satisfied, but those
who are truly wise will find substantial and elevating pleasure in the
sources of enjoyment that God has placed within the reach of all.
To the dwellers in Eden was committed the care of the garden,
“to dress it and to keep it.” Their occupation was not wearisome, but
pleasant and invigorating. God appointed labor as a blessing to man, to
occupy his mind, to strengthen his body, and to develop his faculties. In
mental and physical activity Adam found one of the highest pleasures
of his holy existence. And when, as a result of his disobedience, he was