The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-01-26

Adam
Christ shall all be made alive."-Cor. 1922.
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
In the daily newspaper, as clearly
as in the old Genesis narrative, we
read the tragic story of the fall of
man. Some sin is usually the day
''big news" Most of the extras that
newsboys cry are stories of human mi
putty. The truth of mans fall Is daily
proved before the eyes of everybody
who lives with his fellows. No sin
core-minded person will bubble about
the patent fact than man, who was
made to walk upright, is apt to STUN
BILE and fall and even to groVel. Inc
fall of Adam-whether Adam be re
garded as an individual or a proto-
type of the races one of the points
about which scientists and theologians
may split hairs, but which the plain
man of common sense sees to be really
self-evident.
1t is not q pretty subject Some SEN
sitive persons would eliminate the rec
ord of all crime from the newspapers.
They would expurgate the serpent
from Genesis. They would have their
daily path scented with rose water. To
their taste it is better to rapsodise over
the nobility and dignity and goodness
of human nature; and they wax poeti-
cal about the glory of manhood All
of which is well enough in its place,
but. if we would prove our fitness to
live in a world of flesh and blood men
and women, We must be willing to face
things as they are. And one of the po-
tent, far-reaching and everywhere
present facts of life is the depravity of
human nature.
An Unexpurgated Book.
This big book which tells the world
the most of what it knows concerning
human nature, right here and now, as
we'll as concerning the diviner state to-
ward which the race is looking, has
I,,-sr, 20 n
face with the great actualities. 1t does
not gloss over realities, nor blink facts.
1t is on every page true to truth. Sin
is a factor in human existence, as old
as the Garden of Eden. as new as the
crime of the latest thieving bank of
fetal who cloaks his evil deeds under
the garb of religion.
Thus early in the fair story of the
first paradise. we find the tempter; and
the serpent has never since been alb
sent from any of life's beautiful gar
dens. The first man had to prove his
right to dwell in his state of bliss by
the exercise of Self-sOverefgnty and all
his sons may hold title to happiness
and purity only on the same terms. 1t
is an old delusion. dear to immature
minds, that in more favorable circum-
stances than the present they could be
nobler in character. Real righteous
ness is not a matter Of environment.
The monks of old who thought to es-
cape temptation by fleeing to desert
caves found that the tempter went
with them, in undated power, to the
remotest Businesses of the wilderness.
Temptation existed in Eden, and it ex-
lists everywhere else.
After all. temptation is the test Of
character, and necessary test The
tree of knowledge. is Gods tribute to
man. 1t is a recognition of the divine
in the human. Without it, in state
of perfect security from evil, the par
ents of the race could never have
achieved their possibilities. Soft cir
cumStanceS make soft spirits; a hard
lot makes hardy lives In a serpent
less Eden. without a prohibited tree,
man would have acquired no kingly
characteristics: his goodness would
have been worth nothing. There must
be a tree from which by the exercise
of his own will and by his own self
control man will abstain from eating.
1t is not the boy who is reared with his
hand forever in the nurses hand, and
who is Kept away from all places of
dirt and danger, who grows up into
strong, self-reliant manhood There
must be temptation before there can
be character. Resistance to evil is the
very warp of goodness.
DaIIying With Danger.
The instant a bank clerk begins to
consider how easy it would be for him
to borrow bank funds in order to
play the races he steps out to the
brink of the precipice of moral disas-
ter. When a young man once gives
habitation in his imagination to evil
thoughts. he IS straightway in direct
danger of moral collapse. When Eve
began to hold a spicy conversation with
the serpent, she put the moral welfare
of humanity in jeopardy. 1t is always
a mistake. and only mistake, to daily
with temptation or to argue with the
devil Eve had dishonored Jehovah
in her mind before she dishonored him
by her deed.
No such gross or material thing as
eating the luscious and beautiful fruit
of certain prohibited tree constituted
the fall The real temptation, of
which this act was but an outward ex-
preston, was spiritual, being nothing
less than the temptation to disbelieve
Gods word and to doubt his goodness