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 II.

ON TRIAL.

To find the answer to this question, we must go back a long way—before that time, nearly six thousand years ago, when human history began—right back to the Eternal Years.

From all eternity God had lived alone; alone, but not lonely; One God in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. No sound broke the stillness of His Life; no events came, and went, and brought a change. He was infinitely happy; for in Himself He had all things. If there was to be life, beauty, joy, outside of Him, from Him it must come.

And God willed these things should be. He would not keep always to Himself the happiness He could share with others, but would pour it out upon creatures able to know and love and enjoy Him.

He created the Angels, noble and beautiful spirits, not made to be united to bodies.

He created man, a being in some respects more wonderful than the Angels, because of the union of an immortal spirit with a body formed of the dust of the earth. And because God saw it was not good for man to be alone, He gave him a companion worthy of him. We are now so spoilt by sin that we can form no idea of those beautiful creatures of God in their state of innocence. We have never seen anything so noble and so lovely as Adam and Eve; and what was hidden within was nobler and lovelier still. There was no darkness, nor ignorance, nor weakness. They understood the