HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
[I.]
Forbidden Fruit.
CAN this object, so small, so beautiful, be yet through its effects more deadly than any weapon of war ever forged for man's destruction, more deadly than the poison-flask, the dagger, or the thunderbolt! It lies before us fresh and fair as when, nearly six thousand years ago, it hung amongst the green foliage of Paradise, more beautiful than any fragrant peach on which the last ripening sunbeam glows in a now fallen world.
On the fruit of Eden, which could so lightly yield to Eve's touch, and be marked by the soft pressure of her fingers, we see not the trail of the serpent; it is goodly to look upon, and what mortal dare say that had he been in the place of our first parents, the fair but fatal fruit would have hung untasted on the bough? In looking on it, how awful a lesson we learn of the poisonous nature of what we dare to call "little sins!"
Who amongst us, beholding Eve in her beauty plucking the fruit which tempted her eye, would not have been ready to have echoed the first lie ever breathed on our planet, "thou shalt not surely die." Bright, guileless, and, until now, sinless being; God will not severely judge thee, He has threatened, but He will not perform.
Is not the same deluding idea at the bottom of all our carelessness, our neglect of duty, our grasping at forbidden pleasure? "Thou shalt not surely die" has been the whisper of the Tempter from Eve's time till now. Let us answer him by pointing to that fruit. Was not the death of myriads enclosed, as it were, in its rind? Could the stain left by its fatal juice be washed out by floods of tears or rivers of blood? Had no sin but that one sin of plucking it been ever committed upon earth, could that sin have been atoned for by anything less than the sacrifice of an Incarnate God?
Sin stands not alone by itself: as the seed is contained in the fruit, so one transgression is the parent of many. Coveting what God had withheld, longing for a luxury forbidden, ambitiously aiming at gaining knowledge which should make her independent as a God, Eve at once received into her heart "the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." They came as guests—to remain as tyrants. When we feel their influence within ourselves, when covetousness, love of pleasure, or pride of intellect would draw us from our lowly allegiance to God, from our simple obedience to His word, let us look on the forbidden fruit and tremble—let us look on it, and watch and pray.
The fruit of knowledge still,
Plucked by pride, may death distil.