Man can throw no stones at woman. If the woman failed God that day, the
man failed both God and the woman. If it be true that through her came the
beginning of the world's sin, through her, too, be it gratefully and
reverently remembered, came that which was far greater--the world's
Saviour.

The choice was made. The act was done. Tremendous act! Bring your
microscope and peer with awe into that single act. No fathoming line can
sound its depth. No measuring rod its height nor breadth. No thought can
pierce its intensity. That reaching arm went around a world. Millenniums
in a moment. A million miles in a step. An ocean in a drop. Volumes in a
word. A race in a woman. A hell of suffering in an act. The depths of woe
in a glance. The first chapter of Romans in Genesis three, six. Sharpest
pain in softest touch. God mistrusted--distrusted. Satan embraced. Sin's
door open. Eden's gate shut.

Mark keenly the immediate result that came with that intense rapidity
possible only to mental powers. At once they were both conscious of
something that had not entered their thoughts before. To the pure all
things are pure. To the imagination hurt by breaking away from God, the
purest things can bring up suggestions directly opposite. Through the open
door of disobedience came with lightning swiftness the suggestion of
using a pure, holy function of the body in a way and for a purpose not
intended. Making an end of that which was meant to be only a means to a
highest end. Degrading to an animal pleasure that which held in its pure
hallowed power the whole future of the race. There is absolutely no change
save in the inner thought. But what a horrid heredity in that one flash of
the imagination! Every sin lives first in the imagination. The imagination
is sin's brooding and birth-place. An inner picture, a lingering glance, a
wrong desire, an act--that is the story of every sin. The first step was