Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/150

every tree of paradise?" And immediately the woman felt her heart inspired with that vain curiosity which was the primal cause of her guilt. From that moment, her understanding and her will were enfeebled by the sweet temptation and began to depart from the will of God and the divine mind.

And the serpent said to the woman: "In what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Under the disastrous influence of this promise, the woman felt in her heart the first sensations of pride, and regarding herself with complacency, the face of God was at that moment withdrawn from her sight. Proud and vain, she cast her eyes upon the tree of infernal illusions and divine vengeance; she saw that it was beautiful and inferred that its fruit must be pleasant to the taste, and felt enkindled in her senses the fire, till then unknown, of corrosive delights. Thus the curiosity of the eyes, and gratification of the flesh, and pride of the spirit combined, deprived the first woman of her innocence, and afterward corrupted the first man. Then the many treasured hopes for his posterity vanished, as smoke is dissipated in the ambient air.

And then the entire universe was disturbed, and disorder, having commenced at the highest point of the scale of created beings, was communicated from one to the other, until everything was wrested from the course and place assigned to it by the sovereign Creator. The innate attraction of every creature to ascend and remount even to the throne of God, was changed into an aspiration to descend into some nameless abyss; for, to turn away from God was, as it were, seeking for death and striving to get rid of life.