was censured by his ecclesiastical superiors for daring to say in a
sermon that the Serpent in the Garden of Eden was symbolical and not a
real creature.

And the ecclesiastical authorities were right. The basis of Christianity
is the Redemption--the incarnation and sacrifice of God himself to blot
out the stain of the first great sin and also to open the Kingdom of
Heaven to men. That original sin was Adam's fall, when he followed the
example of Eve, a victim of the Serpent's treacherous counsels, and
disobeyed the command not to taste the Forbidden Fruit. Eliminate the
Garden of Eden, the Serpent, the Forbidden Fruit, and the entire fabric
of Christianity crumbles.

If we turn to profane history and take any historical work, we find that
the facts are told in such a way that they seem to us beyond dispute.
But if we see the same facts from the pen of another historian, we no
longer recognize them. The reason is that a writer almost never
undertakes the task of wrestling with the giant, History, unless he is
impelled to do so by a preconceived idea, by a general conception, or a
system he wants to establish. And whether he wants to or not, he sees
the facts in a light favorable to his preconceived idea, and observes
them through prisms which increase or diminish their importance at his
will. Then, however great his discernment and however strong his desire
to reach the truth, it is doubtful if he ever will. In history, as
elsewhere, absolute truth escapes mankind. Louis XIV, Louis XV, Madame
de Maintenon, Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI, even Napoleon and
Josephine, so near our own times, are already quasi-mythical characters.
The Louis XIII of _Marion de Lorme_ seemed until very lately to be
accurate, but recent discoveries show us that he was quite different.