Page:The Garden of Eden (Doughty).djvu/106

100 rapidly downward. Then it is said that "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked." When it had been said, before the temptation, that "they were both naked and not ashamed," it was, in the spiritual sense, a description of their innocence. In that innocent state there was nothing whereof they needed to be ashamed. Now, however, their eyes were opened; but to what? Why, to the things of self and sense, in a manner in which their forefathers by no means understood them. Their eyes were opened to see that they regarded self and the world as the chief thing's in life, and spiritual things as matters of secondary importance; while their progenitors, in the wise innocence of their hearts, had regarded spiritual attainments as the grand purpose of life, and self and the world as merely instrumental means toward this great end. So they saw their nakedness; that is, they became aware that they were unclothed with spiritual principles, and, therefore, they sought to invest themselves with merely natural good. For, as the vine is the oft-repeated symbol of spiritual good, so the fig-tree is that of natural good. And this clothing the life with merely external or moral virtues, is correspondentially described in the statement that "they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."

Then "they heard the voice of the Lord going