of Eden was somewhere in that plain therefore, especially as the rivers Tigris and Euphrates (Gen. ii. 14) are well known, and the other two rivers mentioned (Gen. ii. 11, 13) can, it is thought by some, be recognized in the Karkhah and the Karun. However this may be, it is clear from the above-mentioned verses that the Garden of Eden was situated on earth, somewhere to the East (Gen. ii., 8) of the land of Palestine, and not in the sky as many Muslim sages have fancied, and as is stated in their Traditions (احادث). In fine, the earthly Garden of Eden is lost, and there is no great advantage in knowing where it once stood, for, were we to find it, man could not there regain rest of heart and true happiness. Man's true happiness can be found only in the heavenly Eden, the ever lasting Paradise, of which mention will be made in the final chapter of this book; and man must seek it with all his might.

Contenting ourselves with what has been said about Adams creation and his first condition, we shall now deal with his sin and its consequences.

Since God had made Adam a free agent and had created him with the intention that he should recognize, love and obey his Creator, it was necessary that Adam should show the love he bore to God by obedience to Him. And, although God did not prevent Satan from tempting Adam and Eve, yet He permitted the temptation to take place, not with the desire that they should fall into disobedience,

but simply with the object that Adam, having thereby been rendered firmer in faith and

love and obedience and in friendship with his Creator, should advance in happiness and honour, and should thus become acquainted with both good and evil. Therefore God afforded an opportunity to Adam of showing his love and obedience. That is to say having planted in the Garden of Eden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God forbade Adam to eat of the latter, saying, 'In¹ the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' Nor was it difficult for Adam to abstain from the forbidden thing, for God rendered the observation of that prohibition easy for him, not only by the great favour, kindness, graciousness and love which Adam had up to that time enjoyed, but also by the fear of a new, debased and terrible state into which Adam was warned that he would fall through disobedience.

If you now ask what sort of a tree that one was which was forbidden, and what effect there was in its fruit, and how Adam then ate of it, we cannot give a decisive answer; because these matters have not been explained in God's word, and man's condition and that of much of the world is other than it was in those days. Yet, though we cannot say more about that tree, so much is evident, that it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, though it had the prohibition attached to it. For