I wonder if you can remember the time when you first began to ask such questions as these: Who made the world? Who made the moon and stars that shine in the night, and the sun that lights and warms the day? Who made the trees and taught them how to grow? Who made all the animals? Who made the fish that swim in the water and the birds that fly in the air? Have you ever asked such questions? They are the questions that children have been asking always, ever since there were any children in the world, and the story that answers all these questions for us is one that mothers have told to their children for thousands of years. Do you know what story I mean? Who can answer the question, “Who made the world?” by using just one verse from the Bible?
The Lesson Story
Our story to-day is about a garden. It was a beautiful garden, more beautiful than anything you and I have ever seen. In it were all kinds of trees and plants, grasses, flowers, and herbs. A river watered the garden. Animals lived in the garden; birds made their nests in the trees and flew across the blue of the sky, filling the air with their sweet songs. Everyone who has heard or read the story of the Garden of Eden thinks of it as a beautiful place in which there was nothing to distress or make one afraid.
The story tells us that God made this garden as a home for the man whom he had created in his own image. “The Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden”—to do what do you suppose? Just to amuse himself all day long? No, God did not put Adam into the garden that he might have a pleasant place in which to do nothing. He was put into the garden “to dress it and to keep it.” He was to find the greatest joy working in the garden, picking the fruits, caring for the growing things, and in guarding them from anything that might not be good for them. Even in the garden there was studying to be done; for Adam studied the animals and the birds, watched them at their play, saw how they lived, and gave to each a name that was suited to it. This kind of work was pleasant, but Adam could not make companions of the animals, and though he had work to do Adam was lonely. God saw that this was so, and he said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.” And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and when he awoke he found a woman at his side whom God had given him to be his companion and friend. Now he was no longer lonely, for he had some one with him who had a mind and spirit like his own, who could talk with him and help him in his work as none of the animals could possibly do. So Adam and Eve were happy in obeying the heavenly Father. They found pleasure in doing what he told them he would like to have them do, and in keeping from doing what God had said they must not do. Let us read from God’s Word just what this was. (Verses 16 and 17.)
When the sun had gone behind the western hills, and the refreshing breezes of the early evening were making the air sweet and cool, and the birds were singing their good-night songs, then it was that the sweetest of all the joys of the day came to the pair in the garden, for we are told that God walked with them in the cool of the day.
Have you ever thought you would be glad if there were no such thing as study? Have you ever wished that you could play all day and never do any work? I suppose all of us have felt that way sometimes, but would it be best for us? Would we be happy very long if we had nothing to do but play? Not very long. I have often heard boys and girls say at the end of the long summer vacation that they were glad to go back to school. And this story, which pictures for us a garden of beauty and happiness, tells of study and work as well as play, of loving companionship and through it all a spirit of cheerful obedience to God. (Memory Text.)
THE PUPIL’S BOOK FOR WORK AND STUDY
Show the picture for this lesson and go over the work for the coming week as carefully as you think necessary, but not so elaborately as to rob it of all freshness for the child when he comes to take it up by himself.